I started At Home: A Short History of Private Life right after we closed on our house. It just seemed like the perfect thing to be reading in our own new home. And, frankly, we have this book in hardcover, and it’s just too big for me to want to carry on the subway (I bought this for Todd as a Christmas gift when it first comes out because he’s a big Bryson fan; I have a terrible habit of buying books for Todd and then reading them before he does).
I had never ready anything by Bill Bryson before. Not A Short History of Nearly Everything, which we have at home on our shelves, not A Walk In The Woods, which countless people have told me is a wonderful read. So I went in a little blind but curious about the history of homes just as I was settling into the first home we owned.
The book started out just as I expected. Bryson — after an introduction about his own home, which serves as the map we follow through the book — launches into the history of the hall. After that, things get a little more tangential. Each tangent makes sense as you ride the wave of Bryson’s thinking, though at the end of each chapter it’s hard to remember just how you got from point A to point B. Throughout the book, Bryson riffs on the Crystal Palace at the 1851 Great Exhibition, sex in historical England, cremation, how fashion has actually killed people (mostly women), the cotton gin, and much, much more. In the end the tangents are the book, and Bryson’s writing is so good, his wit so sharp, and his observations so wonderful, that he can write about anything he wants and I’ll want to read it.
Tags: Nonfiction
I keep wanting to read Bill Bryson, but haven’t ever gotten around it; you make his books sound great. Is there a good starter book of his that I should try first?