I finished Bill Bryson’s At Home: A Short History of Private Life last night. Fittingly, I finished it under my flannel sheets with a beagle at my feet. 1851. I will never forget that year. I also wonder if any future success I incur at pub “Jeopardy” (which means watching “Jeopardy” at the pub with friends) will be directly informed by Bill Bryson. From the outset it seemed like it would mostly be about structures themselves but by the end it seems obvious that we can trace most of modern living through our homes. With technological advances homesteads would be the foremost places to implement them. What I really enjoyed too was Bryson’s style. It felt like a conversation, as if he were giving you a tour of his home and happened to be full of other information. Actually, this is very much how my Dad behaved. When I was little I would ask him to read me a story at bedtime but would of course, be enraptured by the story and still awake at its end. I would then ask him a question that I was sure would dove-tail into logarithms or lengthy histories. All in all this will be one of my most cherished in the collection. It is a perfect holiday book, a cozy companion to be read on the couch (alliterative, much?) As I said, it was in fact a gift to my Dad last Christmas. I do no think he ever got to read it before he got sick but I think he would have adored it. As a homebody and giant brainy nerd (I say with love) this was practically written for him.
- Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life. New York: DoubleDay. Hardback
- ISBN 13: 978-0767919388
- 512 Pages
I finished Bryson last night and came quite close to concluding Elizabeth Peters in the same sitting. Alas for me I was too tuckered and it wasn’t until this morning that it was finished. Devil May Care is exactly what I wanted it to be, a lark.
Set in late 1970s (originally published 1977) Virginia in a small but affluent town of “old families” it has all of my favorite Gothic elements. There were ghostly apparitions, mysterious family histories, old books and a secret, a creepy spinster librarian (!!) and of course, cats! I must say though, that the atmosphere got me a couple of times this week while I was reading. One night I heard strange noises coming from the kitchen. The cat and dog were beside me and the fiance and roommate upstairs in bed. Later that night there was a repetitive thumping from below (our bedroom is above the kitchen) which woke me. This sound I discovered was because the beagle was dreaming and occasionally thumping the foot board of the bed which reverberated and sounded as if it were coming from below. Then, as an old document is being studied in the novel I found strange text in the binding of my paperback! Okay, I’m sure it’s about alignment for the typeset but still — exciting! All in all I really had a lark reading this novel. A character even reminded me of my mother which was pleasant in this enterprise of Dad’s books. I would recommend this book to any of my booknerd friends who are looking for something fun, an in-betweener, “a summer girlfriend” in Black Books terms.
- Peters, Elizabeth. Devil May Care. New York: Avon Books. 2001. Paperback
- ISBN 10: 0-380-73115-0
- 330 Pages
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