AT HOME, BY BILL BRYSON, RANDOM HOUSE, $55.
Best-seller Bill Bryson has an exceedingly lively mind. Having tackled space, time and the mysteries of the universe in his award-winning A Short History Of Nearly Everything, he was casting around for something more domestic – a book he could write in carpet slippers in his own home.
The light-bulb moment came as he explored the attic of the Old Rectory (where he lives in tranquil Norfolk), built for a young clergyman in 1851, and mused on the vast number of souls, some 20,000 or more, buried in the local churchyard. Their lives, Bryson realised, were the meat of history, a history we all share, but no one thinks too much about. He started to ask himself not just big questions, like when, as a species, we started to value privacy, but small, everyday ones, too.
Why, of all the hundreds of spices and flavourings available, did we settle on pepper and salt? Why do forks have four prongs, rather than two or six? And did we not realise that it was not the washing machine or refrigerator that revolutionised our lives, but the humble fuse box? He even throws in some weird nuggets (like, “toilets often had multiple seats, for ease of conversation”) that you just know will come in handy at the next dinner party. All up, an irresistible read.
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