At Home

At Home, A Short History of Private Life--------------------------------------------------In At Home, Bill Bryson applies the same irrepressible curiosity,irresistible wit, stylish prose and masterful storytelling that madeA Short History of Nearly Everything one of the most lauded booksof the last decade, and delivers one of the most entertaining and illuminatingbooks ever written about the history of the way we live. Bill Brysonwas struck one day by the thought that we devote a lot more time tostudying the battles and wars of history than to considering what historyreally consists of: centuries of people quietly going about their dailybusiness - eating, sleeping and merely endeavouring to get more comfortable.And that most of the key discoveries for humankind can be found inthe very fabric of the houses in which we live. This inspired him tostart a journey around his own house, an old rectory in Norfolk, wanderingfrom room to room considering how the ordinary things in life cameto be. Along the way he did a prodigious amount of research on thehistory of anything and everything, from architecture to electricity,from food preservation to epidemics, from the spice trade to the EiffelTower, from crinolines to toilets, and on the brilliant, creative andoften eccentric minds behind them. And he discovered that, althoughthere may seem to be nothing as unremarkable as our domestic lives,there is a huge amount of history, interest and excitement - and evena little danger - lurking in the corners of every home.--------------------------------------------------Author Biography: Bill Bryson's bestselling travel books include TheLost Continent, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods andDown Under. His acclaimed book on the history of science, A Short Historyof Nearly Everything, won the Aventis Prize for Science Books and theDescartes Science Communication Prize. He has written on languagein Mother Tongue and Made in America, and his latest bestsellers areShakespeare and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. www.billbryson.co.uk.