AT HOME: A SHORT HISTORY OF PRIVATE LIFE (PB)

We devote a lot more time to studying battles and wars than studying what history really consists of: centuries of people quietly going about their daily business. This thought inspired Bill Bryson 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. Along the way he researched everything from architecture to electricity, from food preservation to epidemics, from the spice trade to the Eiffel Tower, from crinolines to toilets; and the often-eccentric minds behind them.