Reddit Reddit reviews At Home: A Short History of Private Life

We found 5 Reddit comments about At Home: A Short History of Private Life. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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At Home: A Short History of Private Life
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5 Reddit comments about At Home: A Short History of Private Life:

u/brainflosser · 4 pointsr/history

I love the Mental Floss History of the World and Mental Floss History of the United States. Those two may be exactly what you're looking for. Also, check out Sarah Vowell. Assasination Vacation is great. Bill Bryson's work is excellent. A Short History of Nearly Everything is mind-blowing and I've heard great things about At Home which is next on my reading list. :)

u/kimmature · 3 pointsr/books

Non-fiction. A lot of people seem to discount anything that's not fiction, on the grounds that it will be boring, 'hard', or extraneous to their lives. What's I've found is that I'll often pick up a book because I'm interested in a particular topic, and 'new' non-fiction often takes you into many other related topics, how they've influenced/been a symbol of that society, etc.

A few of the books that really stick in my mind are

The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America. I'd originally picked it up because I've got an interest in serial killers (yeah, I know), but all of the information about engineering, the history of the World's Fair, Chicago etc. was just fascinating.

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. It's supposedly about Prohibition, but it says a lot more about the political/religious climate of the U.S. from the mid-1800s on, ties prohibition in with women's rights, churches, gangsters etc. And it's a great read.

Pretty much anything by Jon Krakauer. A lot of his books are about 'individualism vs. society', but they cover a lot of ground. Into Thin Air is one of the best extreme sports books I've ever read, Into the Wild is incredibly sad, Under the Banner of Heaven was a very interesting look at Mormon-related culture, etc.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life is just interesting, accessible reading, that touches on everything from why we have closets to when the desire for privacy influenced house design.

Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement is ostensibly about a splinter fundamentalist group that started in the U.S., but eventually ends up touching on everything from PACs, to racism, education styles, women's rights, how Catholic/Protestant/Jewish/Islamic fundamentalists are coming to an accord on some fairly major issues, and how that's likely to play out.

And because I'm a Tudor history nut, Henry VIII: the King and his Court, and The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England's Most Notorious Queen were both very interesting, and go well beyond the standard royal biography. I think that it's pretty awesome that so much new information and scholarship is turning up around facts that we've 'known' for centuries.

Pretty much anything by Nathaniel Philbrick or David McCullough.

Non-fiction is just great, especially right now. I think that we're in a bit of in a Golden Age of non-fiction right now, as there's a demand for it, and authors are making it more accessible and interesting than ever.

u/anomoly · 2 pointsr/movies

Anyone agreeing with this statement, and interested in how this came to be, should enjoy At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson. It's one of my favorites.

In the words of the author "We are so used to having a lot of comfort in our lives -- to being clean, warm, and well fed -- that we forget how recent most of that is. In fact, achieving these things took forever, and then they mostly came in a rush. How that happened when it did, and why it took so long to get it, is what the following pages are about."

The audio book version is narrated by Bryson and I highly recommend it. The man is a joy to listen to.

u/Trumpthulhu-Fhtagn · 1 pointr/castles

Go to your local library, the books I linked and ones like them are very often available in the kid's sections. Free!


Depending on what you are trying to do - this book is amazing. It really shakes your preconceptions by exploring how people lived in different times. Not "castles" but an incredible eye opener.

https://www.amazon.com/At-Home-Short-History-Private-ebook/dp/B003F3FJGY/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8