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A review by cocoonofbooks
At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
3.0
It's hard to know what to say about this fascinating, sprawling work. On the one hand, it's chock full of interesting facts -- I found myself highlighting frequently to save notes to share with my husband. On the other hand, most of the information seems only tangentially related to the unifying theme, and at times seems almost a stream-of-consciousness conglomeration of Bryson's research.
The concept behind the book is that Bryson wanted to explore the origins of various elements of home life -- why are certain objects and habits common to our homes while others aren't? The book does, eventually, get at these things, but it covers far more biographical and historical ground in the meantime than is really necessary to explore these aspects of the home.
The structure of the book takes us through each room of Bryson's home, a former rectory in Norfolk, England, and uses the room as a jumping-off point to explore some aspect of private life. In some cases this makes sense, such as exploring the history of bathing in the bathroom and the history of sex in the bedroom. But the chapters then ramble -- an invention of an object leads into a thorough biography of the inventor, which mentions some particular interest of his, which leads into a detailed history of that pastime, and so on.
By the end of the book the pretense of any relationship to the rooms of a house seems completely abandoned, as the last chapter on "the attic" ranges from Charles Darwin to Stonehenge without a single mention of an attic or anything in it.
So if you're interested in reading a history of Britain (and occasionally America) through the ages, with a multitude of biographies of some of its most influential people, then you will love this book. If you enjoy a collection of interesting facts with no clear sense of organization, you will find plenty of things to hold your attention this book.
Just don't expect a straightforward exploration of the origins of items in your home.
The concept behind the book is that Bryson wanted to explore the origins of various elements of home life -- why are certain objects and habits common to our homes while others aren't? The book does, eventually, get at these things, but it covers far more biographical and historical ground in the meantime than is really necessary to explore these aspects of the home.
The structure of the book takes us through each room of Bryson's home, a former rectory in Norfolk, England, and uses the room as a jumping-off point to explore some aspect of private life. In some cases this makes sense, such as exploring the history of bathing in the bathroom and the history of sex in the bedroom. But the chapters then ramble -- an invention of an object leads into a thorough biography of the inventor, which mentions some particular interest of his, which leads into a detailed history of that pastime, and so on.
By the end of the book the pretense of any relationship to the rooms of a house seems completely abandoned, as the last chapter on "the attic" ranges from Charles Darwin to Stonehenge without a single mention of an attic or anything in it.
So if you're interested in reading a history of Britain (and occasionally America) through the ages, with a multitude of biographies of some of its most influential people, then you will love this book. If you enjoy a collection of interesting facts with no clear sense of organization, you will find plenty of things to hold your attention this book.
Just don't expect a straightforward exploration of the origins of items in your home.