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At Home: A Short History of Private Life |  | Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: £20.00
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Seller: Amazon.co.uk
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 87
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.9
ISBN: 0385608276
EAN: 9780385608275
ASIN: 0385608276
Publication Date: May 27, 2010
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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Product Description
Presents the history of the way we live.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Bryson back on form May 28, 2010
Big Jim (London, UK)
82 out of 89 found this review helpful
Having found his name attached to a number of diverse products this is Bryson's first "proper" book since the short history of nearly everything. Well he has made a fine attempt to fill in some of the gaps and has produced a fine, if eclectic, book. The premise of using fixtures and fittings around the home as a means of opening a discourse on a myriad topics is a novel one and one he pulls off as only he can. Sure there is a scattergun approach to this, how could there not be, but using the home as the focus of the many topics up for discussion here keeps the narrative on track and means that you are drawn from subject to subject without a jarring note.
This is not what one could call a "learned" tome, it would never be described as a deep read, but is all the better for it as it is such an absorbing read. It is such a simple idea I only wish I had thought of it first - or could write a hundredth as well as Mr Bryson.
Quite remarkable really.
Bill Bryson - Home sweet home May 27, 2010
Red on Black (Cardiff)
170 out of 186 found this review helpful
"At Home - a short history of private life" is the new and excellent book by the great Bill Bryson. It was recently analysed on the BBC's "The Review show". For those of you who have not seen this TV programme it has become a enclave for a certain type of literary genius who interpret the stubborn refusal of the great British public to buy any of their books as a ringing endorsement for them to criticize those who manage to sell more than ten copies. In this case one Alison Kennedy who must be really incredibly clever because she insists on being called by her initials A. L. Kennedy which of course is sure sign of a proper intellectual.
"AL" highlighted that her feeling of reading "Home" was "like having someone being sick in your head" and further "smart" little comments were liberally thrown into the discussion. The burdens of being so intellectually superior must weigh heavy and as for us poor deluded Bryson fans well hanging is too good for us! Indeed it is with great humility for me as ordinary mortal to disagree with this giant of the literary scene particularly since my academic achievement barely stretches beyond a 25 yard breast stroke certificate and I must admit I had never heard of "AL" until that point. But on reading "Home" the only thing in my head was to marvel at Bryson's humungous research and regret the general failure on the instructions to my brain to cease enjoying this book so much that I kept smiling like an idiot processed by the demon of Gordon Brown's rictus on my very long train journey today.
The greatest ideas are the simplest and Bill Bryson has managed in his new book "At Home," to take a quiet meandering thought and turn it into a wonderful book. In short it is an exploration of the "stuff" we have around us and "a look through all human life through a domestic telescope". It's so obvious but Bryson has the consummate skill to take this basic concept and turn in into a fascinating book characterised by his lovely warm humour and on times he is so dry he should change his surname to Martini. Chapters range from memory jerkers like "the Scullery and the Larder", "the Passage" (which also includes an appreciation of the engineering of the Eiffel Tower in Paris!) and a new one on me "The Plum Room" which turns out to be Bryson's drawing room in his old rectory in Norfolk named after the Cluedo Figure.
Having Bryson around is a bit like having a great friend you have never met. In times of recession, the public finances going to hell in a hand basket and Cardiff losing in the Premier play off's to Blackpool, Bill Bryson is an author who provides an enclave to which you can turn and switch off the madness of the modern world. He sells books by the bucket load largely because he is such a bloody good writer. His little book on Shakespeare resulted in me actually enjoying reading the bard for the first time in ages and every trip I make to the USA I am accompanied by his irreverent "Notes from a Big Country" to get me in the mood and laughing like a drain. Indeed I shall now look up the origins of that term.
Bryson is a populist and proud of it. He has an enviable gift to state things clearly even when they are complex and do it in a prose which is a joy to read. In this book he sets out for your delectation the evolution of the lawnmower invented it appears by one Edwin Beard Budding in 1830, the origin of the door, the triumph of salt and pepper and Benjamin Franklin's development of the "air bath". He also kills a number of myths not least that the surname of Thomas Crapper the inventor of the modern toilet was not the source of a common term for human waste.
Throughout the book Bryson's accumulated facts are very illuminating and joyously worthless. Thus you learn in the 19th century that "New York harbour once yielded so much sturgeon that caviar was sent out as a bar snack". That the "Quenchuan language of Peru still has a thousand words for different types or conditions of potatoes" When he combines this with his dry wit he is unstoppable, hence his telling but hilarious observation on beds that 'When wood-shavings and sawdust make it into a top-10 list of bedding materials, you know you are looking at a rugged age'.
Bryson's history would be a nightmare for academics since he rambles off in all directions like a walker without a map and yet going off on a tangent holds no fear for the great man. You to as the reader can "jump" into this book at any point and pluck from it factoids and anecdotes that you will be able to dine out on for months. And always Bryson (just like Billy Connolly) has that gift to somehow take all this chaos, jumble it around but eventually return to the starting point with coherence and bravado. So don't listen to "AL" for "At Home, a short history of private life" is a joy and an absolutely inspired treat.
Home win June 11, 2010
Jon Chambers (Birmingham, England)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've probably read more books than is good for me (memo to self: get out more). But reading At Home makes the house the most interesting of places.
Other reviewers have drawn attention to negative nagging from 'intellectuals'. Last Sunday's Observer contained another gripe complaining, amongst other things, that the book was too discursive and rambling. Such carping misses the point. Even if the book is only loosely about the home, Bryson's willingness to digress whenever and wherever the mood takes him is why most people love reading him! In evidence again here is his almost infallible ability to select things that should be common knowledge, but aren't, and to see things that should be obvious, but aren't. For instance, the appallingly low life expectancy at birth for the inhabitants of mid-C19 Dudley: 18.5 years - 'a lifespan not seen in Britain since the Bronze Age'; the fact that although the 'Great' Fire of London happened in 1666, a greater fire in London took place in 1212 - killing 12,000 as opposed to 5; or that the Orkney Islanders had buildings with locking doors and drainage, before the Egyptian pyramids and well before the Roman invasion! (Ironically, however, the picture of Skara Brae shown in an advert on the Observer's book review page shows a more sophisticated aspect of prehistoric Orkney life than does the book's own illustration.)
Bryson's gift for aphorism remains undimmed. The eighteenth century garden, with its stiff formality and inevitable symmetry, meant that 'The grounds of stately homes weren't so much parks as exercises in geometry.' While for those of us with suburban gardens, 'keeping a handsome lawn is about the least green thing we do.' And on C18 standards of hygiene: 'Where everyone stinks, no-one stinks.'
Not just an enjoyable read, At Home adds rich, often bizarre and fascinating detail to our homes and our social history. Despite its extensive bibliography, this is not a work of scholarship - nor does it pretend to be. But it IS popular, carefully crafted writing that is informative, warm-hearted and witty.
Amazing, informative, amusing, rambling! June 30, 2010
Mr. M. B. Cranfield (Somerset, England)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Written as only Bill Bryson knows how, this book will amaze you at how little you knew about your own home, and will fill your head with so much information you will bore your friends for days with all this fascinating trivia. Bill does stray away from his subject matter quiet a lot, and will sometimes frustrate you as you wanted to know about cellars but find him talking about anything but cellars! However you will forgive his rambling style by the time you finish the book, and will thank yourself that you bought a book worth reading more than once. One minor irritation, this is about an English Rectory but spends time talking about American houses which I found odd.
So much fascinating information August 20, 2010
Damaskcat (UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
When I first looked at this audio book I was a little daunted to find it was on 14 CDs providing over 16 hours of listening. But I found it was very easy to listen to and absolutely fascinating. The idea of the book is that the author explores the history of the house using his own Norfolk rectory as a starting point and ranging far and wide geographically as well as in terms of subject matter. Furniture, clothes, food, pests, parasites, plants, books, famous people and historical events are just some of the subjects covered.
The author progresses throughout the house looking at the various rooms and their contents. There are references to houses and events both here in the UK, in the USA and in Europe as well as to archaeological investigations. I found all the snippets of information absolutely fascinating but found I really needed to listen to the books with pen and paper in hand so that I could write down items I wanted to find out more about.
Bill Bryson reads well though I found his voice soothing so I tended to drift off to sleep while listening - necessitating much retracing of my steps! This could be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on your point of view. The recording quality is excellent as you might expect from a BBC Audio offering and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it.
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