At Home
Subtitle: A Short History of Private Life
By: Bill Bryson
Edition: 1st U.S. ed.
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2010
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 497
ISBN-13: 9780767919388
Copyright date: 2010
Description: “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.
(front flap)
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [455]-475) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction
pagenum: 1; label: I
title: The Year
pagenum: 7; label: II
title: The Setting
pagenum: 28; label: III
title: The Hall
pagenum: 44; label: IV
title: The Kitchen
pagenum: 66; label: V
title: The Scullery and Larder
pagenum: 86; label: VI
title: The Fuse Box
pagenum: 111; label: VII
title: The Drawing Room
pagenum: 135; label: VIII
title: The Dining Room
pagenum: 163; label: IX
title: The Cellar
pagenum: 191; label: X
title: The Passage
pagenum: 212; label: XI
title: The Study
pagenum: 237; label: XII
title: The Garden
pagenum: 255; label: XIII
title: The Plum Room
pagenum: 285; label: XIV
title: The Stairs
pagenum: 307; label: XV
title: The Bedroom
pagenum: 320; label: XVI
title: The Bathroom
pagenum: 344; label: XVII
title: The Dressing Room
pagenum: 374; label: XVIII
title: The Nursery
pagenum: 403; label: XIX
title: The Attic
pagenum: 432; title: Acknowledgments
pagenum: 453; title: Bibliography
pagenum: 455; title: Illustration Credits
pagenum: 477; title: Index
pagenum: 479