At Home: A Short History of Private Life cover art

At Home: A Short History of Private Life

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life

By: Bill Bryson
Narrated by: Bill Bryson
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

About this listen

Here is Bill Bryson’s entertaining and illuminating book about the history of the way we live - complete, unabridged and read by the author.

Bill Bryson was struck one day by the thought that we devote more time to studying the battles and wars of history than to considering what history really consists of: centuries of people quietly going about their daily business. This inspired him to start a journey around his own house, an old rectory in Norfolk, considering how the ordinary things in life came to be. Along the way, he researched the history of anything and everything, from architecture to electricity, from food preservation to epidemics, from the spice trade to the Eiffel Tower, from crinolines to toilets. And he discovered that there is a huge amount of history, interest and excitement - and even a little danger - lurking in the corners of every home.

Where A Short History of Nearly Everything was a sweeping panorama of the world, the universe and everything, At Home peers at private life through a microscope. Bryson applies the same irrepressible curiosity, irresistible wit, stylish prose, and masterful storytelling that made A Short History of Nearly Everything one of the most lauded books of the last decade.

©2010 Bill Bryson (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Thought-Provoking Funny Witty Suspenseful Imperialism War

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Lost Continent cover art
Made in America cover art
The Bill Bryson BBC Radio Collection cover art
The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England cover art
The Making of Modern Britain cover art
This Victorian Life cover art
Assassination Vacation cover art
Cryptonomicon cover art
Restoration London cover art
Victorian London cover art
A History of the World in 6 Glasses cover art
Dr. Johnson's London cover art
Quicksilver cover art
World War One cover art
The Housekeeper's Tale cover art
A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain cover art

Editor reviews

A tremendous look at the very dense but often overlooked history of ordinary, everyday life can be found in the brilliant audiobook At Home: A Short History of Private Life, written and narrated by award-winning and appraised author Bill Bryson. This book delivers the perfect combination of lighthearted entertainment and thoroughly researched facts. Bryson’s beautifully constructed prose brings even the most seemingly insignificant of household items to an entirely exciting front. Listeners will find themselves gazing far more closely and with much more appreciation at the small items that make up much of their daily life. Available now from Audible.
All stars
Most relevant
If you can get throgh a lengthy section on American houses, the rest is solid gold. A mine of really interesting information.

Heaps of detail

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Bill Bryson has long been my favourite author, but of course mostly for his travel and 'personal history' books. His specific subject books like 'Shakespeare' and 'Mother Tongue' can be quite entetaining, but usually so jam-packed with facts and figures that they can be regarded as text or study books rather than light-hearted reading.
'At Home' covers so much ground that I am amazed at his ability to collate so many interesting facts and report them in such an informal, chatty way. There is the occasional amusing aside while reporting the factual information, but largely this book is best read in short bites with full concentration so that the reader can digest the richness of the content without getting too glassy-eyed at the relentless delivery of facts. Personally I loved this book, so much so that I have also bought the printed version to refer back to specific passages when the audio book is not available.

Hugely informative and well-paced

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As usual., Bill Bryson goes off piste and provides a wealth of fascinating information that is often only loosely connected, but which is nonetheless endlessly informative and enjoyable.

Great book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved every minute of it - as I do all of his books. Easy to follow yet comprehensive and in depth.

One of my favorite books

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
To hear Bryson reading his own book is a real treat. I read it on release but it’s great to hear it again.

Loved it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews