At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
By Bill Bryson
From the most liked authors of our time—more than six million copies of his books were bought during this state alone—a interesting day trip into the heritage at the back of where we name domestic.
“Houses aren’t refuges from background. they're the place historical past ends up.”
Bill Bryson and his kin stay in a Victorian parsonage in part of England the place not anything of any nice importance has occurred because the Romans decamped. but in the future, he started to contemplate how little or no he knew concerning the usual issues of lifestyles as he came across it in that cozy domestic. To treatment this, he shaped the assumption of touring approximately his condo from room to room to “write a historical past of the realm with out leaving home.” the lavatory presents the social gathering for a background of hygiene; the bed room, intercourse, dying, and sleep; the kitchen, foodstuff and the spice exchange; and so forth, as Bryson exhibits how each one has figured within the evolution of personal lifestyles. no matter what occurs on the earth, he demonstrates, leads to our condo, within the paint and the pipes and the pillows and each merchandise of furnishings.
Bill Bryson has one of many liveliest, so much inquisitive minds on the earth, and he's a grasp at turning the probably remoted or mundane truth into an get together for the main diverting exposition that you can think of. His wit and sheer prose fluency make At Home essentially the most wonderful books ever written approximately deepest lifestyles.
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Sample text
And you’re right. But there was something special about this one, because, small and defenceless though they were, they didn’t just become part of history, they made history – and by that I mean they shaped the course of all history to come. And this special something was their religion. B 25 All other peoples prayed to many gods – you remember Isis and Osiris, Baal and Astarte. But these herdsmen only prayed to one god, their own special protector and leader. And when they sat beside their camp fires in the evening, and sang songs about their deeds and their battles, they sang of his deeds and his battles.
They also found round seals and inscribed clay tablets in those tombs. However, the inscriptions were not in hieroglyphs, but in a totally different script that was, if anything, even harder to decipher. This was because pictures had been replaced by neatly incised single strokes ending in a small triangle, or wedge. The script is called cuneiform, meaning wedge-shaped. Books made of papyrus were unknown to the Mesopotamians. They inscribed these signs into tablets of soft clay, which they then baked hard in ovens.
This was because pictures had been replaced by neatly incised single strokes ending in a small triangle, or wedge. The script is called cuneiform, meaning wedge-shaped. Books made of papyrus were unknown to the Mesopotamians. They inscribed these signs into tablets of soft clay, which they then baked hard in ovens. Huge numbers of these ancient tablets have been found, some recounting long and wonderful stories, such as that of the hero Gilgamesh and his battles with monsters and dragons. On other tablets kings boast of their deeds: the temples they have built for all eternity, and all the nations they have conquered.