At Home with Bill's Sharp Wit ; Why Do Forks Have Four Prongs? Why Does Pepper Always Go On the Table with Salt? Like Us, Author Bill Bryson Took All These Home Comforts for Granted Until One Day He Began to Wonder Why. The Result, As Weekend Discovered, Is a New Book, Full of His Usual Wit, About Domestic Life Through the Ages. You Can Catch the Author When He Appears at Cheltenham Science Festival On Friday

Summary

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BEST-SELLING author Bill Bryson never imagined that a trip to his attic to investigate a leak in the roof would lead to a mammoth four- year project. The globe-trotting author, best known for his witty, informative travel books and his hugely successful science guide, A Short History Of Nearly Everything, found a secret door which led to a tiny rooftop space and prompted the thought that he knew little about his home or how people lived day-to-day through centuries. Four years on, the resulting 483-page tome, At Home: A Short History Of Private Life, features the minutiae of people going about their daily business through the ages.

"Even Einstein will have spent large parts of his life thinking about his holidays or new hammock or how dainty was the ankle on the young lady alighting from the tram across the street," Bill reflects.

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At Home with Bill's Sharp Wit ; Why Do Forks Have Four Prongs? Why Does Pepper Always Go On the Table with Salt? Like Us, Author Bill Bryson Took All These Home Comforts for Granted Until One Day He Began to Wonder Why. The Result, As Weekend Discovered, Is a New Book, Full of His Usual Wit, About Domestic Life Through the Ages. You Can Catch the Author When He Appears at Cheltenham Science Festival On Friday

"I don't know how many hours of my school years were spent studying the Missouri Compromise or the War of the Roses, but it was vastly more than I was ever encouraged or allowed to give to the history of eating, sleeping, having sex or endeavouring to be amused."

The softly spoken American wittily recounts how people have...

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