At Home: A Short History of Private Life
1 journaler for this copy...
This is a place of mystery...a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.
Dear Reader
Welcome to BookCrossing, especially if it is your first time here. I am really pleased that you found this book. It is a gift from me to you. If you wish you may hold on to it, but I hope that you will pass it on, either to a friend or loved one, or by leaving it to be found again. That way our book will be on an adventurous journey which we can follow as it gets passed along.
In the meantime, did you read the book? What did you think of it? Also, what do you think of the idea of BookCrossing? Feel free to write any thoughts when you come back to make a journal entry for this book.
While you are here, why not take a look around our website? It is completely free to register, it is safe and spam free and, if you do join, you will receive email alerts when this book is found again. I would be delighted if you wish to mention me, shelj7k, as the member who introduced you.
'The history of household life isn't just a history of beds and sofas and kitchen stoves, as I had vaguely supposed it would be, but of scurvy and guano and the Eiffel Tower and bedbugs and body-snatching and just about everything else that has ever happened.
Houses aren't refuges from history. They are where history ends up.'
Bill Bryson was struck one day by the thought that we devote a lot more time to studying the battles and wars of history than to considering what history people quietly going about their daily business - eating, sleeping and merely endeavouring to get more comfortable.
And that most of the key discoveries for humankind can be found in the very fabric of the houses in which we live. This inspired him to start a journey around his own house, an old rectory in Norfolk, wandering from room to room considering how the ordinary things in life came to be.
Along the way he did a prodigious amount of research on the history of anything and everything, from architecture to electricity, from food preservation to epidemics, from the spice trade to the Eiffel Tower, from crinolines to toilets; and on the brilliant, creative and often eccentric minds behind them. And he discovered that, although there may seem to be nothing as unremarkable as our domestic lives, there is a huge amount of history, interest and excitement - and even a little danger - lurking in the corners of every home.
Where A Short History of Neary Everything was a sweeping panorama of the world, the universe and everything At Home peers at private loife through a microscope. Bryson applies the same irrepressible curiosity, irresistible wit, stylish prose and masterful storytelling that made A Short History of Nearly Everything one of the most lauded books of the last decade, and delivers one of the most entertaining and illuminating books every written about the history of the way we live.
~~~~~~~~
I first discovered this book while visiting House Number 29, one of the beautiful Georgian houses here in Dublin which is owned by the ESB and has been restored to all its regency elegance.
The book is fascinating for anyone, like me, who has a curiosity about history and the way that the people who were here before us lived their lives.
Houses aren't refuges from history. They are where history ends up.'
Bill Bryson was struck one day by the thought that we devote a lot more time to studying the battles and wars of history than to considering what history people quietly going about their daily business - eating, sleeping and merely endeavouring to get more comfortable.
And that most of the key discoveries for humankind can be found in the very fabric of the houses in which we live. This inspired him to start a journey around his own house, an old rectory in Norfolk, wandering from room to room considering how the ordinary things in life came to be.
Along the way he did a prodigious amount of research on the history of anything and everything, from architecture to electricity, from food preservation to epidemics, from the spice trade to the Eiffel Tower, from crinolines to toilets; and on the brilliant, creative and often eccentric minds behind them. And he discovered that, although there may seem to be nothing as unremarkable as our domestic lives, there is a huge amount of history, interest and excitement - and even a little danger - lurking in the corners of every home.
Where A Short History of Neary Everything was a sweeping panorama of the world, the universe and everything At Home peers at private loife through a microscope. Bryson applies the same irrepressible curiosity, irresistible wit, stylish prose and masterful storytelling that made A Short History of Nearly Everything one of the most lauded books of the last decade, and delivers one of the most entertaining and illuminating books every written about the history of the way we live.
I first discovered this book while visiting House Number 29, one of the beautiful Georgian houses here in Dublin which is owned by the ESB and has been restored to all its regency elegance.
The book is fascinating for anyone, like me, who has a curiosity about history and the way that the people who were here before us lived their lives.
