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Oct 02, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

Bill Bryson's curiosity is boundless, and he loves research. He seems to have a particular fondness for digging up bizarre, creepy, and freaky tidbits to share with his readers. If you don't mind skimming over the dull parts, At Home is worth reading for all the trivia and historical weirdness Bryson shares.

The book is essentially a history of domestic life in Britain and America--its comforts and discomforts, and the inventions along the way that made things easier and cleaner. I More...

2 comments like (13 people liked it)

Apr 23, 2011

Barbara rated it:

I am still reading At Home, but it was an instant hit with me. I like Bill Bryson, for the most part, and he seems to be a family favorite around here. This is essentially a sampling of English history, told through the rooms of the parsonage in which Bryson lives in England. Basically, he wanders into the kitchen, say, and spins the history of how people once lived in one-room houses with a side kitchen, tells what they ate, what their hygiene was like and how classes were or were not separa More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Dec 21, 2010

William rated it:

This is a very hard book to categorize. Ostensibly, it's a description of the author's home in England, but that really doesn't cover it. All I could think of as I was reading it was a great conversation. If we went to his home - an English parsonage built in 1851 - for dinner we would, of course, talk about the house, but like all really great conversation the talk would ramble off in every direction with stories that had nothing to do with this particular house or houses in general for th More...

1 comment like (22 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2011

Sonja rated it:

I came across a review that dismissed Bill Bryson's work as being entertaining fact collection that doesn't present anything new. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, if not the implication. There is nothing wrong with entertaining fact collection, and, in my mind, everything right with it. In this age of information overload, the kind of clear-minded research and fact-sorting he performs for his readers is manna sent from communication heaven. The ability (and the willingness) to collect, More...

4 comments like (25 people liked it)

Jun 05, 2011

Janis rated it:

So far so good. This is a room-by-room history of the western European house. It is full of trivia, so I enjoy marking places and announcing factoids to my family. It's first chapter describes the Crystal Palace. Not that edifice in Southern California, but the wondrous mammoth green house in Victorian England--large enough to enclose elms.

This was a very satisfying book, indeed.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 19, 2011

Anita rated it:

If Bill Bryson and Sarah Vowell wrote all the history texts, and Mary Roach wrote all the science texts, our society would be more educated and amused than anywhere on earth. I want to say that this book was a greatly informative text on the history of sanitation, architecture, anglo-saxon culture, farming, growth of cities, and society in general, but I'm afraid that would put you off.
This is the story of his house in England. He takes us through each room discussing the history, scienti More...

2 comments like (23 people liked it)

Apr 05, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

Whenever I'm asked about my favorite authors, Bill Bryson always makes the list. Not only has he written a string of humorous yet informative travel narratives, he's also penned a memoir about his 1950s childhood and a variety of non-fiction books on topics as diverse as the English language, Shakespeare and a rather grand attempt at a book called A Short History of Nearly Everything. Bryson is able to make whatever he is writing about amazingly interesting while also being gently humorous. I've More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 20, 2010

Lena rated it:

When Bill Bryson moved into an old rectory in the English countryside, he became curious about the various features of his house and how they came into being. In At Home, he traces the development of human domestic living from its often unexpected origins to the taken-for-granted, gadget-filled dwellings we now live in.

This is my first book of Bryson's, but I will definitely be reading more. He has a clear, engaging style that has a way of making everything he talks about deeply int More...

15 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2011

JG (The Introverted Reader) rated it:

We take so much in our daily lives for granted. Bill Bryson looked around his house one day, realized how little he knew about the everyday objects surrounding him, and, being Bill Bryson, decided to research and write a book about them.

I read this slowly as my before-bed book, and I'm not sure that was always a good idea. Reading about how ingenious rats are as I hear the pitter-pat of little rodent feet in my attic space is not necessarily a good idea. But at least now I know wh More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 05, 2011

Erin rated it:

Let me preface this review by saying that, yes, I am a fan of Bill Bryson and I love history books.

At Home is not Bryson's best work. Its loosely-organized premise (a room-by-room history of everyday life and everyday objects) feels overly-contrived and, in practice, makes for a rather clumsy and wandering book.

I could only put up with a very little bit at a time. It took me a month to finish.

Nevertheless, I'm glad I read it. There are sundry interesting fact More...

2 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jul 13, 2011

Carl rated it:

I read this book against my better judgement, and indeed my judgement was right. Having read A Walk in the Woods by the same author, my daughter's mother-in-law thought I'd like this one, though I was quite open about not liking it.

And I do like this kind of book...one that wanders around history making unexpected connections and has little asides of coincidence. But I find Bryson to be arrogant and patronizing. Clearly an Anglophile he speaks with disdain of other nationalities. More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 24, 2011

Kathy rated it:

This is pretty fascinating and I generally like Bill Bryson, but the book is heavily concentrated on the fascinating discoveries/inventions/accomplishments of men. Women are only mentioned for the silly things they did as the wives of these men or for writing silly books Bryson describes as "unreadable then and probably unreadable now." Apparently in all his exhaustive research on the history of private life, Bryson found no significant contributions by women.

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Oct 06, 2011

Emily rated it:

Houses are where history ends up. Could there be a better premise for such a book? Bryson is impressively adept at planting seeds of interest in the lay reader.

Yet I seem to be the only one who wishes he would prune away the mini-biographies that bloom and overshadow the ideas at the root of his projects. He's a hopeless storyteller and often a great one, but I had to roll my eyes and then send them skimming when a brilliant concept like the essence of stairs devolved into yet anoth More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

May 19, 2011

Andy rated it:

This book has lots of interesting factoids but these are buried under many pages-long avalanches of words about "unfairly neglected" minor personages of history that are actually fairly neglected. It sort of delivers on the promise of telling us something about the home we live in and what's inside it, but the cost of that information is a ton of tangential trivia I found extremely boring. Others surely find all the meandering anecdotes entertaining and that's fine, but then the boo More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 20, 2011

Liz rated it:

I'm always astounded by Bryson's ability to weave seemingly dull factoids into interesting and engaging prose. I loved At Home. There are so many things that I never even thought about that contribute to our modern way of life. I have never been more grateful to exist during modern times than I am right now.

One thing that I wondered about in this book was the seemingly random transitions from one topic to another within a chapter. The bedroom chapter ended up talking about the hi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 01, 2011

Jenne rated it:

Ooh, yes please. This is juuust the kind of thing I like. It reminds me of trying to organize a closet, where one thing leads to something else, and something else, and something else until you find yourself in the middle of re-installing a light fixture and you look over and the closet is in a mess all over the floor...anyway where was I?

Yeah, anyway, it's actually much better organized than I make it sound, and somehow manages to be organized chronologically AND spatially AND at More...

5 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 05, 2011

Ted added it

Awesome, awesome, awesome, if you like historical trivia ---and how it affects us every moment we're in our home. I've read more Bryson books (11) than any other author--outside Shakespeare--and this is up there with my favorites, perhaps just below Notes From a Small Island.

The genesis of the book was when Bryson, sitting in his converted Victorian rectory, looked at the salt and pepper shakers on his table and wondered why we use THESE two spices. "Why not pepper and cardamom, say, or sa More...

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Feb 21, 2011

Florinda rated it:

I've occasionally reflected on the pace of change during the 20th century, but in this "short history of private life," Bill Bryson makes a convincing case that the magnitude of change may have been more striking during the 100 years preceding it. Domestic life as we know it today didn't really exist until pretty recent times, and Bryson explores its development via a room-by-room ramble through a 19th-century English country home - the former parsonage he lives in with his family. And More...

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Feb 14, 2012

Victoria rated it:

I like this book a lot. Couldn't put it down. Learned a lot. gave it five stars, but I question the premise set forth in the title.

First, a couple of notes. This book overwhelmingly deals with British life. There are a few American issues addressed, and a couple of other countries might be mentioned, but this a is a book that will be really enjoyed by those who enjoy British Historical fiction. It is sort of like What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist- More...

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Jan 31, 2012

Stephen rated it:

How much history and how many laughs can you put under one roof? Take a tour of Bill Bryson's old English home with him and find out. At the outset of the book, Bryson shares a few experiences in and around his home which impressed upon him the fact that there's a great deal of fascinating history bound up in the mundane environment we take most for granted; our houses. And so, he labors to tell the stories of his house -- of all of houses, and of civilization in general.

A guided visi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Adrian rated it:

At Home is a fantastic romp through the history of everyday things, outlining the oddities of people, cultures, and materials that combined to bring us all the things we have in and about our house.

In many ways, it is a perfect companion to Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants, showing how these things have evolved out of the pressures of the times. He takes a slow journey through a house he lived in in England, and examines the room itself and some of the contents therein, covering ev More...

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Jan 22, 2012

Nathan rated it:

The subtitle to this book should have been "A Short History of Everything I Missed In The Last Book". Nominally a history of things domestic, Bryson's latest is largely a social history of England and America: what people ate, where they slept, how many servants they had, how their gardens were constructed, what inventions made life more convenient, what diseases they died from, and on and on. Bryson's gift is to find the gently ridiculous; he can bring names and notability to life on More...

6 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 20, 2012

Sheila rated it:

From the glories of London’s lost Crystal Palace to the mysteries of an extra room in a vicarage, from the history of ancient dwellings dug into the ground to the wonders of modern technology, from rich man’s privilege to poor man’s hope, Bill Bryson’s At Home is filled with fascinating details, personal anecdotes, curious tidbits of research and glorious essays delighting the ear. Capability Brown, John Constable and more put in an appearance. The Industrial Revolution rolls over the land. Farm More...

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Jan 19, 2012

Nathalie rated it:

This is an amazing book--it will make you laugh, gasp, ponder, wonder, cringe, sometimes all in just a few sentences. Bill Bryson currently resides in England with his family. One day, he climbed up to the attic seeking for the location of a leaky roof and thus began his research on the former parsonage where he lives. He takes each part of the house--the parlor, the kitchen, the bedroom, the bathroom, the hall, etc. and takes you back into time to find out the rich history associated with each More...

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Jan 11, 2012

Ellen (Elf TajMuttHall) rated it:

I love Bill Bryson's work, but this one disappointed somewhat. He's at his best when telling a story (A Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned Country--even A Short History of Nearly Everything), exploring the English language (The Mother Tongue, Made In America, etc.), or selecting words for Dictionaries. Hmm, in other words, almost everything else he's written.

This has the same research, the same revealing interesting tidbits, the same fine, easy-to-read writing style, and the same dry hu More...

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Jan 04, 2012

Espen rated it:

Bill Bryson is one of those writers whose books I buy sight unseen - so I can't really understand how I missed this one. I got it as a very welcome Christmas gift and read it in small portions over the holiday - the book is ostensibly a walk through an old English house, room for room, but that framework serves only to very loosely organize a barrage of anecdotes and historical trends.

It is obvious that Bryson enjoyed this book - perhaps more than any other he has written. As one revie More...

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Jan 01, 2012

Nikki rated it:

Long, rambling, labyrinthine trip through the history of a house, room by room. I loved the idea of this book and much of it was totally fascinating. I often get the feeling when I read Bryson, though, that he is first of all regurgitating the books on his reading list - more like a curator of information than a writer - and secondly that he's quite happy to miss out massive chunks of a subject if it doesn't happen to interest him. It's as if he's looking at certain small patches under a really More...

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Dec 16, 2011

Mei-Lu rated it:

I'm a HUGE fan of Bill Bryson's books - they are usually such a great combination of witty and interesting. I always learn something when I read his books and such is his delivery, I tend to remember what I've read. At Home is no exception - it is chockfull of fascinating anecdotes and pieces of history. However, since the focus of the book is more informative it tends not to be as funny as his earlier books. It's also a bit meandering and seems to fizzle out, rather than end. I enjoyed it, More...

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Nov 28, 2011

Eric_W rated it:

Bryson brings us another fascinating tome filled with delightful trivia and anecdotes in this history of housing in Britain.

The “hall” as we know it today is a place to leave the muddy boots and hang coats. Originally, it *was* the whole house. With an open hearth in the middle and members of the family (this included slaves and servants since the one large room made everyone party of the unit) congregating around it, little was private and everyone shared in the heat (or lack the More...

7 comments like (13 people liked it)

Nov 24, 2011

Cwalker rated it:

I enjoy Bill Bryson's books and this one was no exception. However, at the start I questioned the wisdom of Mr Bryson reading his own work. His voice is a curious (although I suppose unsurprising) mixture of accents and at several points in the proceedings he sounded like he was fighting off a cold. But after 14 CDs I will greatly miss his company on my daily commute. As in the History of Nearly Everything, the author has ferreted out quirky characters and interesting and often funny nuggets of More...

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