I have been following Bryson's writing closely since 2000 after I gobbled up his non-fiction writing to date. This is his latest book. Following on the success of A Short History of Nearly Everything, I guess he decided another social history of a subject would attract readers. (His other books are a mix of travel narrative and memoir.) At Home is a social history of the house. The title is an overstatement and an understatement. The overstatement is, it's really just about Northern European and American homes in the past 300 years. The understatement is, the topic of "houses" –rooms, gardens, building materials– is really just a way to organize a book about nearly everything else. At Home is not so much a tour of homes as it is a provocation to write about whatever and whoever can be connected through archival citation to parts of the home. It makes for a wonderful ride and I come away from each chapter astonished with how Mr. Bryson charges otherwise dry historical minutiae with illuminating prose and top-notch story telling.

Interesting side note: this is the first full-length book I've read entirely on my Kindle.