Some time after my wife and I moved into a former Church of England rectory in a village of tranquil anonymity in Norfolk, in the easternmost part of England, I had occasion to go up into the attic to look for the source of a slow but mysterious drip.
An edition of At Home
(2010)
At Home
A Short History of Private Life
1st U.S. ed.
by Bill Bryson
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“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)
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Showing 10 featured editions. View all 31 editions?
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01
Een huis vol: Een kleine geschiedenis van het dagelijks leven
2020, Olympus
Paperback
in Dutch
- Tiende druk
9046705870 9789046705872
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At home: a short history of private life
2016, Black Swan
Paperback
in English
- Black Swan edition reissued (4)
178416187X 9781784161873
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At Home: A Short History of Private Life
2011-10, Anchor Books
Paperback
in English
- First Anchor Books Edition (1)
0767919394 9780767919395
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05
At home: A Short History of Private Life
2011, Black Swan
Paperback
in English
- Black Swan edition (5)
0552772550 9780552772556
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06
At Home: A short history of private life
2011, Black Swan
paperback
in English
- Black Swan edition (1)
0552777358 9780552777353
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07
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
2010, Doubleday
hardcover
in English
- printing (1)
0385608276 9780385608275
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At Home: A Short History of Private Life
2010, Doubleday
Hardcover
in English
- 1st U.S. ed.
0767919386 9780767919388
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At home: a short history of private life
2010, Doubleday
Hardcover
in English
- First United States Edition (1)
0767919386 9780767919388
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Book Details
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Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. [455]-475) and index.
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Work Description
At Home: A Short History of Private Life is a history of domestic life written by Bill Bryson. It was published in May 2010. The book covers topics of the commerce, architecture, technology and geography that have shaped homes into what they are today, told through a series of "tours" through Bryson's Norfolk rectory that quickly digress into the history of each particular room.
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Links outside Open Library
- At Home: A Short History of Private Life - Wikipedia
- At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson | Book review ...
- If Walls Could Talk
- At Bryson's House, 'Home' Is Where The History Is : NPR
- Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life Is a Fascinating ...
- New York Times review
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