| At Home: An informal history of private life: A Short History of Private Life |  | Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: £20.00
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Rating:  82 reviews
Sales Rank: 88
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.9
ISBN: 0385608276
EAN: 9780385608275
Publication Date: May 27, 2010
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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Product Description
Presents the history of the way we live.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 82
Entertaining audiobook September 10, 2010
Ripple (uk)
Bill Bryson is almost a brand. You know what you are going to get with any of his works. He's American, but doesn't live there. He lives in Britain but isn't British. This position allows him to hold up a mirror to each and helps him identify what is strange and unusual ... and often funny and interesting. As philosopher Roland Barthes observed, you can tell most about societies from what happens on the edge.
For me, Bryson was at his peak in his early works on the US and the UK, and was fascinating in his identification of where sayings and words evolved from. He's still at this in part - which is a good thing. Now though, his works tend to be much longer. That doesn't mean more in depth - it merely means less focussed. That's not to suggest that this isn't a good thing. His rambling style and frequent deviations are always entertaining and well argued, although if you tried to do this in an academic essay, you'd be taken to the cleaners for not sticking to the subject.
He's quick to debunk conventional theories and offer alternatives which he presents as fact. I'm not always so convinced and remain mindful of the saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Fascinating, interesting, often amusing - yes. Is it right? Well, maybe.
Using the rooms of his own house as at least a nominal starting point for his journeys into the past and social history, there's a fair bit of laughing at the old people - poor Mrs Beaton gets a particular pasting (not undeserved).
As an audio book, it runs for a lengthy 16 and a half hours on 14 CDs, all read by Bryson who copes well. I've thoroughly enjoyed his company on many car journeys. There are times though when I felt that I wanted to go back and "read" a bit again and while of course you can do this (the disks are usefully broken down into "tracks") it's not quite the same as reading it.
All told, this is a highly entertaining audio-book and I much prefer unabridged versions. And while Bryson is no Stephen Fry when it comes to reading large tomes, he is certainly eminently listenable to. Definitely recommended.
 Factual Fervour - Hollow Sounds September 6, 2010
The Wolf (uk)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Bill Bryson likes facts. He loves them in fact!
If you do too then it is very likely that you
will enjoy 'At Home'. Listening one's way through
the audiobook edition, however, requires a very
particular kind of commitment. 14 CDs and sixteen
and a half hours of Mr Bryson reading his own book
tested my patience to the limit. Now don't get me
wrong here, Mr Bryson is an entertaining and occasionally
very funny writer (I can stiil recall the simple joy of
laughing my way though 'The Lost Continent : Travels
In Small Town America') but he is an author who should
be seen (an in read) but most definately not heard.
His voice lacks colour and modulation and material
which should really fly off the page and explode like
fireworks in the air never really leaves the ground.
Mr Bryson's fascination with lists (eg the fish eaten
on Fridays in medieval England) may well be absorbing
in a written context but become highly irritating
when monotonously enunciated by the author.
Mr Bryson also finds it very hard to contain his enquiry.
The putative structure of the narrative creaks and groans
with excessive diversions and sidesteps to the extent that I
felt battered and bruised by his unbridled overinclusion.
The recording is so long that I have to admit I ran out of
steam at the end of disc four. You may well do better.
Perhaps with a more engaging narrator (Stephen Fry perhaps?)
'At Home' might have come to life.
Disappointing.
Interesting... up to a point September 5, 2010
Mr. T. COLEMAN (Coventry, UK)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bill Bryson has built up something of a reputation for his inquiring mind. Along with a slew of brilliantly funny travel tomes, Bryson has more recently turned his attention to matters of a more scholarly pursuit (Shakespeare / natural history), and this latest publication falls squarely into this second half of his work. Taking his own home, a converted Rectory, as the jumping off point Bryson goes from room to room giving a history of private life and domesticity in general.
First, the good. Bryson has always been an eloquent writer and his gifted word-craft is on display everywhere. He has seemingly read almost every source available in his hungry research, and then recounts his findings in immaculate detail, giving us many endearing factoids to pinch and reuse oneself. Some points are genuinely interesting, and on this audiobook edition Bryson speaks with clarity and an obvious love of his subject.
However after a while the book suffers from the flip-sides of some of the above positives. His anecdotes become increasingly tangental and one feels as though Bryson is trying to recount everything he knows simultaneously. He perhaps shares too much, and the book could have done with some prudent editing. Listening to these CDs, therefore, does give the uncomfortable feeling at times that one is stuck in an elevator with a frightful bore who doesn't quite know when to stop talking.
Bryson is capable of so much more than this. His affable wit, gracious command of English and unashamed intelligence have all been deployed to better effect in previous works, and one can only hope will be again in the future.
 A History of the World in 20 Chapters - Epic book that seems to cover pretty much everything August 31, 2010
BS on parade
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R3NBZQL4CN6OKG When I ordered this I was expecting perhaps six CDs. It was an eye popping moment when it arrived and I read on the box that it contained fourteen discs, and that it was sixteen and a half hours long. I haven't seen the book but I'm guessing it's a big thick one.
Some people have complained that his voice isn't varied enough and too flat for such a long audiobook. I had zero problems with his delivery and didn't find it to be half as dry as some. I heard a lot of wry amusement in his voice and there are plenty of subtle little jokes throughout. It probably helped that I didn't treat the audiobook as a sprint, or a chore to get through as quickly as possible. I would imagine anyone's voice would grind you down if you listen to it for hours at a time. It took me over a month to listen to it at a leisurely pace, so that I could enjoy it and not have it go by in a lumpy blur. I started on the 17/7 and finished it on the 31/8/10. In total there are 277 tracks.
The book is structured by having Bryson take us through his Victorian parsonage house room by room for each chapter. In each room he gives us the history of how this sort of room came to be, and related history concerning what people over the ages have been doing in this sort of room.
In truth the structure doesn't quite work as he goes off on several massive tangents with tenuous connections to the supposed subject. I suppose I should complain but that would be to miss the point as these tangents are the real meat and point of the book. His interest in actual houses on a room by room basis comes a very distant second to getting to tell us as much as he can about everything he knows. It's just a useful way to set up and give his book shape.
The subjects the book covers is very wide. Of the top of my head subjects that are covered include architecture (designing and building), landscaping, the lives of clergymen, burial and cremation of the dead, the building of canals, clothing (fashion, wigs, materials etc), sewage (London in particular), life in servitude (downstairs), European aristocracy (upstairs), the American super-rich, archaeology, the move from candles to electrical bulbs for light, inventors and their inventions, diseases, a history of bedding, the industrial revolution, the theory of evolution, the discovery of America, childbirth before modern medicine, surgery before anaesthetics etc etc etc.
Is it a work of high quality history? I'm not qualified to say. No doubt, as he doesn't go into minute details on everything, he has simplified or omitted much detail. As a layman I enjoyed it as entertainment and I assume that it's accurate enough to withstand scrutiny by anyone who isn't a dedicated expert on each particular subject.
I can easily see myself returning to this book as it's highly entertaining and big enough to withstand many leisurely start to finish listens throughout the years.
I very highly recommend this audiobook. If you intend to use it as a reference, or would just like to be able to easily find specifics parts again, then perhaps the book version would be more useful than this audio version.
The video I've added to this review gives you an example of what the book is like.
Great for car journeys August 26, 2010
C. Clark (Canterbury, Kent, UK)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you like Bill Bryson, you'll love these - It took me a while to get through the cd's but very enjoyable.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 82
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