Welcome back to Between the Lines Book Club. This month we’re reading At Home by Bill Bryson. It’s a long book, but a quick and easy read. We’ll be meeting to discuss it in person on January 27, 2018 at Arden Dimick Library at 10:30AM.
At Home is a nonfiction history of how and why houses are the way they are. Because of how the book is arranged, it’s easy to either read the book straight through or pick and choose chapters based on interest level. Here’s a quick rundown of the chapters and their topics:
Chapter One: The Year: Describes the year 1851, when the house was built.
Chapter Two: The Setting: The development of agriculture and ancient housing.
Chapter Three: The Hall: Covers the time when The Hall meant the entire interior of a house to the development of separate rooms.
Chapter Four: The Kitchen: Food! The development of ice as a common means of food preservation, mason jars, and cans, and the change in eating habits through the Victorian Era.
Chapter Five: The Scullery and Larder: In which being a servant was just awful.
Chapter Six: The Fuse Box: Life by candlelight, gaslight, and the development of the electric light.
Chapter Seven: The Drawing Room: The invention of comfortable furniture. Also, lots and lots of architecture.
Chapter Eight: The Dining Room: Spices, scurvy, salt, vitamins, coffee, and tea.
Chapter Nine: The Cellar: What was used to build homes in Britain and America, and why? If you have an interest in wood, bricks, stone, or cement, this is the chapter for you.
Chapter Ten: The Passage: The Eiffel Tower, The Gilded Age, the telephone.
Chapter Eleven: The Study: Mice and rats and bedbugs, oh my! Also germs and bats and locusts and lice!
Chapter Twelve: The Garden: Much architecture. The switch from formal to more naturalistic parks. The development of Central Park. The development of gardening as a hobby. The rise of the lawn.
Chapter Thirteen: The Plum Room: In which Bryson discusses Monticello and Mount Vernon.
Chapter Fourteen: The Stairs. Household hazards!
Chapter Fifteen: The Bedroom: Sex, disease, death, and burial.
Chapter Sixteen: The Bathroom: The very smelly history of hygiene.
Chapter Seventeen: The Dressing Room: Fashion!
Chapter Eighteen: The Nursery: Childbirth and child rearing is not for wimps.
Chapter Nineteen: The Attic: Darwin, economics, and the end of the parsonage era.
Enjoy, and feel free to pick and choose!
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