At Home: A Short History of Private Life

Bill Bryson was struck one day by the thought that we devote a lot more time to studying battles and wars than to considering what history really consists of: centuries of people quietly going about their daily business - sleeping, eating, having sex, endeavouring to get comfortable. And where did these normal activities take place but at home. 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. With the 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, Bryson applies his irrepressible curiosity to how history shaped our everyday lives. And what he discovers in the corners of his own home are surprising connections to anything from scurvy to guano, the Eiffel Tower and bedbugs, body-snatching and toilets, and just about everything else that has ever happened, resulting in one of the most entertaining and illuminating books ever written about the history of the way we live.

A huge publishing event, the irresistible new Bryson, now in paperback. At Home does for the history of the way we live what A Short History of Nearly Everything did for science.

Shortlisted for Galaxy National Book Awards: Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2010.