At Home: A short history of private life [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Sein Thema ist vermeintlich etwas "enger" geworden: vom gesamte Universum seines letzten Bestsellers zum Alltag auf der Erde und seiner Geschichte. Sein Ansatz bleibt der gleiche: mehr oder weniger alles, was er interessant findet, in ein Buch zu stecken -- wobei er darin glücklicherweise ein absoluter Experte ist. Bill Bryson macht eine Reise in seinem eigenen Haus (einem alten Pfarrhaus im verschlafenen Norfolk) und wandert von Zimmer zu Zimmer, während er nachforscht, woher all die Dinge stammen, die ihn umgeben. Auf seinem Weg macht er erstaunliche, überraschende und nicht zuletzt humorvolle Exkurse über die Geschichte der Architektur, Entdeckung der Elektrizität, Erfindung und Entwicklung moderner Toiletten und unzähliges mehr. Und zu seinem persönlichen Unbehagen trifft er dabei auch auf eine erschreckende Vielzahl von Epidemien, Krankheiten und sonstigen Gefahren für Gesundheit und Wohlbefinden. (Wobei, wie wir wissen, Bryson fast immer dann in humorvoller Höchstform ist.)

Dabei stößt er auf interessante Fragen: Warum haben wir (aus einer Auswahl von hunderten von Gewürzen) schlussendlich bevorzugt Salz und Pfeffer auf dem Tisch (und warum nicht zum Beispiel Salz und Kardamom)? Warum haben Gabeln vier Zinken statt zwei oder sechs? Warum haben Japaner Angst vorm Treppensteigen? Bryson kümmert sich erneut um Fakten und Phänomene, die sich im Laufe der Jahrhunderte zu langsam entwickelt haben, um bemerkt zu werden, und bietet in "At Home" die gleiche unbändige Neugier, unwiderstehlichen Witz und unterhaltsame, erhellende Erzählung, die "Eine kurze Geschichte von fast Allem" zu einem der erfolgreichsten Sachbücher der letzten Jahre gemacht haben. Wobei er wenig eigene Forschung betreibt, aber sich erneut als Meister der Recherche und unterhaltsamen Zusammenstellung präsentiert (der Anhang des Buches hat eine fast 30-seitige Literaturquellenliste).

Bill Brysons außergewöhnliche Leistung mit "At Home" ist, den Blick auf das gesamte menschliche Leben durch ein "häusliches" Teleskop zu machen und dabei für uns alle festzustellen, dass unser Zuhause nicht der Zufluchtsort vor kultureller und sozialer Geschichte ist, sondern der Platz, an dem Geschichte beginnt und endet.

At Home: a short history --- of almost everything else ... (or: new facts and funny stories from Bill Bryson)

His subject is supposedly becoming more focussed: from the entire universe of his latest bestseller to life on Earth and its history. His approach remains the same: to put more or less everything he finds interesting in a book -- luckily to say, he is an absolute expert in doing so. Bill Bryson makes a journey within and around his own house (an old rectory in sleepy Norfolk) and wanders from room to room while he investigates where the things around him come from. Along the way he makes some amazing, surprising and humorous digressions about the history of architecture, the discovery of electricity, the invention and development of modern toilets and countless more bits and pieces. And to his personal discomfort, he learns about a frightening number of epidemics, diseases and other threats to health and well-being. (But, as we know, in those cases Bryson is almost always at his humorous best.)

He encounters interesting questions: Why do we finally have (from a selection of hundreds of spices) preferred salt and pepper to be on the dining table (and why not, for example, salt and cardamom)? Why do forks have four prongs instead of two or six? Why are the Japanese afraid of climbing stairs? Bryson brilliantly collects facts and phenomena that have evolved over the centuries too slow to be noticed, and, in "At Home", shows the same irrepressible curiosity, irresistible wit and entertaining, illuminating narrative that made "A Short History of Nearly Everything" to one of the most successful non-fiction books of recent years. He presents himself as a master of research and entertaining compilation again (the book has an almost 30 pages literature source list appendix).

Bill Bryson's extraordinary achievement with "At Home" is to view all human life through a "domestic" telescope and to discover (for all of us) that our homes are not the safe haven and refuge from cultural and social history -- but simply the place where history begins and ends.

As a big fan of Bill Bryson, I have to start by saying that ANY book from Bill Bryson will pack you so full of trivia that you can use to impress the masses at fancy dinner parties and will entertain on a level not easily accomplished by other, less talented authors. I have read not all, but many books from the vast Bryson library; A Walk In The Woods, I'm A Stranger Here Myself, The Life and Times of Thunderbolt Kid, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Shakespeare and Notes From A Small Island.

For Bryson standards "At Home" is merely okay and although entertaining, is not up to the standards set in a "I'm A Stranger Here Myself" or "A Walk in the Woods", which I consider to be Bryson's best. I found "At Home" to be meandering and even, dare I say it, at times a bit boring because of the sheer amount of information presented. Bryson's research and detail, as always, is unsurpassed and I assume his facts are correct, although looking through some reviews at Amazon UK I see that this is brought into question in a couple reviews.

One problem that I have with the book is that it is not at all what I expected given the title and book description. The themes throughout the book are often only very loosely connected to any typical room or item in a modern home, and often Bryson wanders off topic and the connection to home life is no longer evident. This is not to say that what is covered isn't, for the most part, fascinating, Bryson discusses topics such as child labor during the industrial revolution, the significance of the spice trade and how bloody it became and Charles Darwin and his little excursion where he formulated the theory of evolution. Although I did enjoy this book my expectations of what I would be reading about and what I ended up getting were not one and the same.

Another reason that "At Home" isn't as great as some of his other books is that the fresh and clever humor that I have come to expect and cherish in a well crafted Bryson tome is for the most part, absent. Bryson weaves his facts and stories artfully as always but mostly without the little obvious or clever comment that makes one laugh out loud such as the following gem in which Bryson recounts the goods on display in London's Crystal Palace in 1851:

"If the building itself was a marvel, the wonders within were no less so. Almost 100,000 objects were on display, spread among some 14,000 exhibits. Among the novelties were a knife with 1,851 blades, furniture carved from furniture-sized blocks of coal (for no reason other than to show that it could be done), a four sided piano for homey quartets, a bed that became a life raft and another that tipped its startled occupant into a freshly drawn bath"

Unfortunately passages like these that make you laugh out loud are few and far between in "At Home".

Most of "At Home" centers on the Victorian age in Britain (and to a lesser degree in America) as that is the time when Bryson's home was originally constructed and many of the terms Bryson refers to come from the original architectural blueprint that was used to erect the home. So "At Home" could have easily been titled "The Victorian Homestead" or something that gave a nod to the time period and we would have had a clearer idea of what to expect.

In any case, any, and I do mean ANY Bryson book is always worth a read, but if you are not familiar with Bill Bryson's work, I would recommended starting on one of his earlier books and eventually coming round to "At Home" after you have tasted the best Bryson has to offer first.

After so much has already been writen here only some thoughts about this volume:

The index and the bibliography are helpful in making this a kind of narrative reference-work, which is quite nice and the perspectives the book gives on a lot of the day-to-day-things we find in and around our homes is very refreshing.

Sometimes - only sometimes - the author strays to far from home and one forgets what the book is supposed to be about - but we can learn so much about important things and people we didn't even know about - or didn't know were important, that this fault can be easily forgiven. I also liked the pictures and drawings a lot. a very successful gift.