For anyone of a rational disposition, fashion is often nearly impossible to fathom.

I just finished Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life and I was not disappointed.  Bryson's history books, At Home, A Short History of Nearly Everything and his Shakespeare biography Shakespeare: The World as Stage are less laugh out loud funny than when he writes his own personal anecdotes, either in his travelogues or memoir, but this is hardly to say that this book was devoid of humor.  It's just more understated.  Even without belly aching humor this is a book I'm sure I'll re-read a few times.  History has never been my favorite subject to read and most of the time when reading historical texts I find my mind wandering.

Perhaps because Bryson comes to history from such an amateurs point of view I never feel alienated or bogged down by obscure details.  If anyone else were to write a book that included the history of the modern London sewage system I'm sure I would laugh at the subject and immediately put the book down.  When Bryson does it though I'm intrigued.  He is able to stress the importance of the engineering of this new system of plumbing in a way that I can understand and appreciate.  And of course there's his voice: "Late in life [Joseph Bazalgette] was knighted, but he never really received the fame he deserved.  Sewer engineers seldom do." (location 6213) Bryson appreciates the accomplishments of Bazalgette and others like him and is able to articulate that enthusiasm to a reader like me, who has no natural interest in such topics.

In the intro Bryson describes his purpose of the book

So I formed the idea to make a journey around it, to wander from room to room and consider how each has featured in the evolution of private life.  The bathroom would be a history of hygiene, the kitchen of cooking, the bedroom of sex and death and sleeping, and so on.  I would write a history of the world without leaving home. (location 107)

Most of the time he accomplishes this and you can see how the room he is investigating relates to the history he's sharing.  Sometimes, especially in the final "Attic" chapter, he goes off in such a direction that I was never able to make the connection between the story and the room at the top of a house.  But that never bothered me.  I love the short random stories and it doesn't especially bother me if the stories are not directly related, as long as they're interesting.  I have enough ADD that I have no problem jumping between topics.  For those nervous about this, the book is fairly consistent and of course does have the over-arching theme of how home life has changed over time and what lead to the changes.

Title quote from location 6427

Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life.  Doubleday, 2010.  ebook.

It is remarkable to think that people thought of striped fabrics before they thought of doors and windows

When I first started considering eReaders I thought it would help on my daily commute. At the time I was spending about an hour a day on the subway, plus time waiting for the T to show up and I lived off the Green line, so this could account for a lot of time.  This gave me some great reading time but could be a hassle if the book was especially large, such as when I was reading the behemoth Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.  Holding a 6 pound book in my hand while trying to balance on the T was never fun and I would avoid hardback books because I knew I didn't want to have to carry it.

Now I have a Kindle, but in the funny way the world works, I no longer ride the subway for my commute.  I've lost a solid hour of reading time and I don't have the same need for an eReader.  Of course.

Even though my initial reason for wanting the Kindle is gone, I'm still enjoying reading on it.  It is lightweight enough that holding it in one hand, even in the cover I got, is no problem.  I love that it's easy for me to take notes and highlight passages.  I hate marking up an actual book, so if I happen to see a quote I like I just have to hope I remember what it is.  That hardly ever works out for me.  It has a little counter at the bottom of the page to show you how far through the book you are, which I'm enjoying more than I would have assumed.  Buying books is slightly too easy and I'll have to watch myself.  I still plan on reading actual books so I won't be making a full electronic leap but I'm happy with what I have so far.  And with that, onto the book

I'm reading Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life and I'm currently 38% of the way through. (I told you I love that little counter.) I have been looking forward to this book since about last May, when I first heard about it and that excitement increased when I saw him speak at the Boston Book Festival.  Originally I was waiting for the book to come out in paperback but my Kindle has given me the perfect excuse to quit being patient and just get the book now.  I am loving it.  I've said on far too many occasions that I could read about paint drying if Bryson was writing about it and this book practically does that.  Bryson wanders through his English home and gives a history of the house as it has come to be, at least in England and America.  This book isn't quite as laugh-out-loud funny as his travelogues but the humor is still there.  This is much closer in style to his science book A Short History of Nearly Everything.

Because my favorite part of Bryson is his voice, here are some quotes I highlighted

His summary as to the etymology of the word "cabinet"

This explains why this one word now describes both the most intimate and exalted group of advisers in government and the shelved recess in the bathroom where we keep Ex-Lax and the like. (location 1049)

 Explaining how demanding people were on their servants

It wasn't just a question of doing the work, but often of doing it to the kind of exacting standards that generally occur only to people who don't have to do the work themselves. (location 1544)

The cheapness of the Duke of Marlborough.  He can probably also be described by the quote above

The duke was so cheap that he refused to dot his i's when he wrote, to save on ink. (location 2441) 

Title quote from location 743

Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life.  Doubleday, 2010. eBook