A short history?  In his introduction, Bill Bryson says it was obvious to him that he would have to be painfully selective. His version of “selective” ended up in a 500-page rambling, digressive tome. It takes the reader, ostensibly, through Bryson’s 1851 rectory in rural England, and room by room tackles random facets of each. In his words, “Whatever happens in the world – whatever is discovered or created or bitterly fought over – eventually winds up, in one way or another, in your house…Houses aren’t refuges from history, they are where history ends up.”

By rights, this book should be as dull as sitting next to a verbose, short-sighted Latin professor at some mandatory dinner party, but somehow, it’s just…not.  Bryson reminds me of an enthusiastic kid at times, dragging a newcomer through his house. He runs and jumps from one topic to another with abandon, having no apparent goal in mind, except to amuse himself with an audience. Is there anything that doesn’t arouse his curiosity? Or his enthusiasm? Why are there salt and pepper shakers on the table?  Why not salt and cardamom?  Where did corn come from? Why are they called “chests” of drawers? Why were the English called “Limeys” and what is it with the British and their tea anyway? As Bryson answers these questions and many hundreds more, he opens the reader’s mind to reconsider long-held beliefs, and we found ourselves at times even laughing out loud (and then running after an innocent spouse to read to him from the book – again).

We didn’t all actually finish the book, but we all had fun reading what we did. Our conversation ran the gamut, from Thomas Edison who “had a vacuum where his conscience ought to be”, to servants who were treated in the same way we treat our modern appliances, to the history of toilets. We talked about ice as a commodity, the unbelievable diets of the 19th century and locusts the size of Yorkshire Terriers. Our conversation also turned to issues such as childbirth and illness, and reminded us all to take advantage of our modern medicine, and book a mammogram.

As Bryson points out, the history of private life is really a history of getting comfortable.  It is almost appalling to us now to think of our forebears who spent so much of generations past just trying to survive. Our own lives of cozy chairs, clean indoor air and soft beds would have seemed almost heavenly.  When you shower tomorrow morning, try to keep in mind that “by the 18th century, the most reliable way to get a bath was to be insane.”

Someone pointed out that At Home is an ideal book to just leave lying around, whether at home, or at the cottage. It is not a novel, or a story, but anyone, young or old, male or female, can pick it up, open to any page, and become instantly engrossed, even if you’ve read it before. It is just as easily put down again, waiting for the next time someone has a curiosity about something, or an even just an idle moment.  

If you enjoyed this book, it would be worth your while to pick up one of Bryson’s other books – the Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, A Walk in the Woods, or Neither Here Nor There, are three that come to mind.  A note of caution – be careful reading Bryson in a public place, because guaranteed, people will look at you funny when you start shaking and snorting with laughter.

“Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth’s mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stuck fast, untimely wounded or otherwise deflected from its life’s quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result – eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly – in you.”
― Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything