- Hardcover
- Publisher: Doubleday (2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0767919386
- ISBN-13: 978-0767919388
- Product Dimensions: 16.1 x 4.1 x 24.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#20,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #19 in Books > Home & Garden > How-to & Home Improvements > Reference
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Most helpful customer reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Vintage Bryson ... Entertaining if not deep,
By C. J. Thompson "Arctic John" (Pond Inlet, Nunavut Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: At Home: A Short History of Private Life (Hardcover)
It is not possible to state, with any precision, what this book is about. It would probably be closer to say it is about just about everything as opposed to anything in particular. Mr Bryson uses the various rooms in his Victorian parsonage as inspiration for essay subjects and then skips onwards and upwards in ever more prodigious bounds to touch on the most disparate and delightful topics...Did you know that ambergris is an intestinal accretion in sperm whales composed of partially digested squid beaks? I did know that actually, but it wasn't until I read this book that I learned that the substance has a vanilla like taste and Thomas Jefferson enjoyed eating it with eggs. Similarly, until delving into this rich little tome I remained totally ignorant of the unique method used by certain rats at a poultry market in Greenwich Village to steal eggs without breaking them (I won't spoil the book by spilling the secret here, though.) Sometimes, Mr Bryson's research is a little shaky, indeed I noted one point where he is categorically wrong, but I bought this book for entertainment, not as a research tool for a doctoral thesis. Happily, that is exactly what I got.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Delightful Book About Pretty Much Everything,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: At Home: A Short History of Private Life (Hardcover)
Bill Bryson has an inquisitive mind; when he sets out to learn the history of the dining room, for example, he does so by way of tracing the history of the spice trade as it impacted Britain, which of course leads to a discussion of the East India Company, but which also leads to an explanation as to why salt and pepper are the common condiments found on every dining room table, as well as the arrival of tea and coffee to the UK, the reason why dinner moved from a midday meal to one sometimes quite late at night and much much more. His new book, At Home: A Short History of Private Life, is a delightful wander through his own home, a former parsonage built in 1851, and while I'm not sure that I learned a lot about how specific rooms came to serve different purposes, I did learn a lot about, among other things, why the US became powerful when Canada did not (it has to do with the Erie Canal, which displaced the perfectly usable - and already existent - St. Lawrence Seaway as being the chief means of transporting goods to and from the interior of the continent), how cholera affected all classes though it was first considered a (deserved) disease of the poor, and why John Lubbock was so important to British history, yet so forgotten now. I read it straight through, but it would also work very well as a book to dip into from time to time, reading the odd chapter here and there, and giving one's brain the opportunity to absorb all the fascinating trivia included on every page. Highly recommended.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A SHORT HISTORY ABOUT WHATEVER THE AUTHOR WANTS TO WRITE...,,
By
This review is from: At Home: A Short History of Private Life (Hardcover)
This book caught my attention, in part, because I have read other books by the author and enjoyed them. I was also drawn to the topic, which purported to be a short history on private life. Well, while I enjoyed it overall, the author definitely went off on tangents and did not really deliver what he promised.The author used his own home, a nineteenth century rectory, as the starting point for each chapter, which is named after each room in his home, plus the garden. As he goes through each of the chapters, which are really somewhat like essays in which he ruminates about the room and the things associated with them, he does goes off in many directions that often have little to do with the room in question. It is as if each room were merely a vehicle for expounding on various historical references and issues that caught his fancy. Still, I found it enjoyable and interesting, though I do wonder about some of the assertions the author made, especially since the book contained an extensive bibliography but no footnotes or sources for his "history". In the final analysis, the book is a hodgepodge of historical trivia, tidbits that are often interesting and amusing, but hardly elevate to a cohesive history of any kind. It is a work of pure self-indulgence by the author and a guilty pleasure for the reader.
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