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At Home: A Short History of Private Life
At Home A Short History of Private Life
Author: Bill Bryson
From one of the most beloved authors of our  time?more than six million copies of his books have been sold in this country alone?a fascinating excursion into the history behind the place we call home. — “Houses aren’t refuges from history. They are where history ends up.” —   — Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victoria...  more »
ISBN-13: 9780767919388
ISBN-10: 0767919386
Publication Date: 10/5/2010
Pages: 512
Rating:
  • Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
 38

3.8 stars, based on 38 ratings
Publisher: Doubleday
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

charliebear avatar reviewed At Home: A Short History of Private Life on + 26 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 6
With this book Bill Bryson has gone from being an amusing writer with a gift for connecting the most abstract to the most specific, to being an unfocused cataloger of arcane information he picked up in the course of his other work.

As an avid reader of Bryson's earlier work, I was wholly disappointed by Bryson's inability in this book to tie together the stories he presents with his chapter subjects. At his most weak moments, he offers a sentence at the beginning and a sentence at the end to try to bring himself back to the subject at hand, while ignoring that he has just led readers through 30 pages of unrelated information.

After reading it halfway through, I could no longer tolerate the disconnected ramblings and began to wonder if Bryson wasn't rushed through this project (or perhaps heavily aided in it) by an over eager editor.

This is not Bryson at his best and this book is not worthy of him. What could have been another brilliant piece to add to his collected works turns out to be a shambles of notecards thrown together under a "bait and switch" title.
mmbay avatar reviewed At Home: A Short History of Private Life on + 19 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
A good editor would have helped this book quite a bit. At 471 pages, this book was about 300 pages too long--too much wandering off topic combined with too much over simplification of history. I started skimming about half way through, while there is the occasional glimmer of Bryson's trademark sense of humor, it's not enough to make this book a keeper.
wantonvolunteer avatar reviewed At Home: A Short History of Private Life on + 84 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
The same way Bill Bryson entertained and guided me along the Appalachian Trails in A Walk In The Woods, he's provided here in At Home a thorough and thoroughly enjoyable education on the history of all things home-related! Bill Bryson is an American, and the house he describes in this book was originally built as a rectory in the British village in Norfolk.

Each chapter is based on a separate room, and I think the funniest section is Chapter XVI The Bathroom; in it for example Bryce describes the uber-modest Victorians' transition from bathing-averse to bathing-happy. "What really got the Victorians to turn to bathing, however, was the realization that it could be gloriously punishing... Many diaries record how people had to break the ice in their washbasins in order to ablute in the morning... One early type of shower was so ferocious that users had to don protective headgear before stepping in lest they be beaten senseless by their own plumbing."
patsyjean avatar reviewed At Home: A Short History of Private Life on + 11 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I am probably missing a lot of interesting information and important historical facts about everyday living by not finishing this book, but it was just too much. I liked the book and skipped around to different parts, but couldn't read it all the way thru.
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