![]() The chapters are not so much histories of individual rooms but rather act as springboards for exploring particular topics as varied as germs, ice, lighting, the construction of the Eiffel Tower, salt, cotton and much much more. About half of the chapter devoted to the kitchen, for example, is about Mrs Beeton where any number of different stories could have been chosen instead. ![]() For this reason, ‘At Home’ felt like quite a quick read in spite of the size of the book because there are some chapters where it feels like Bryson has barely scratched the surface. The book never drags as there is an awful lot of information crammed in from epic amounts of research – the bibliography and index alone take up 68 out of the 700 pages in the book. ‘At Home’ covers an ambitious amount of history without ever being overwhelming or tedious and Bryson’s characteristically dry humour makes it a thoroughly entertaining read. As well as exploring how the modern idea of the home has developed over history both in its architecture and our daily habits, each chapter covers a different room in the house – the kitchen, the dining room, the cellar (even the fusebox) and the stories behind how we live. ![]() The subtitle of ‘At Home’ by Bill Bryson is ‘A Short History of Private Life’ – in other words, a history of all aspects of domestic life including eating, cleaning and sleeping and so on. ![]()
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