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A Short History of Private Life
Doubleday
October 2010
On Sale: October 5, 2010
512 pages
ISBN: 0767919386
EAN: 9780767919388
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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 Victorian parsonage in
a part of England where nothing of any great significance
has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he
began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary
things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To
remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his
house from room to room to “write a history of the world
without leaving home.” The bathroom provides the occasion
for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and
sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so
on, as Bryson shows how each has figured in the evolution
of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he
demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the
pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture. Bill Bryson has one of the liveliest, most inquisitive minds
on the planet, and he is a master at turning the seemingly
isolated or mundane fact into an occasion for the most
diverting exposition imaginable. His wit and sheer prose
fluency make At Home one of the most entertaining books ever
written about private life.
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