At Home: A Short History of Private Life ~Bill Bryson

–published 2010
–Doubleday
–512 pages (452 main text)
–5/5 stars

Books are crafty and clever things. Even when one is exercising economic self-restraint and has taken great pains to eschew dens of iniquity (the local book shops), books have a way of pulling the ol’ snake charmer routine on you, and before you know it you find yourself at home with one, or more, new friends. Such was the case with me on a recent trip north of Kansas City to attend a work-related training. I was innocently listening to NPR when suddenly, without warning (or at least without anything I recognized as a warning), author Bill Bryson was reading to me from, and being interviewed about, his just released book, At Home: A Short History of Private Life. Even had I not partaken of and enjoyed Bryson’s book, A Walk in the Woods, many years prior, I would not have been able to resist the siren song of this book. It will surprise no one that on my lunch break that day I found the nearest bookstore, Borders, and walked out with this [thankfully 40% off] hardback.

Amazon calls it “an authoritative history of domesticity”.

Publisher’s Weekly says, “Bryson takes readers on a tour of his house, a rural English parsonage, and finds it crammed with 10,000 years of fascinating historical bric-a-brac. Each room becomes a starting point for a free-ranging discussion of rarely noticed but foundational aspects of social life.”

I say, “there is enough fascinating history…not dry history, but history come alive…in At Home that one could use it as a map for a lifetime of marvelous reading or simply devour it gluttonously as I did.”

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Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books ~Maureen Corrigan

–published 2005
–Vintage Books
–201 pages
–4/5 stars

Last week at work, amidst a pile of manila envelopes filled with endless stacks of paper requiring my signature, I found one containing this book. I knew without looking that this was sent up through interoffice mail by my dear friend Pat, who years ago actually worked for me. Pat and I had offices next to one another and we bonded over a mutual love of books, a kindred spirit discovery brought to light by Dava Sobel’s wonderful book, Galileo’s Daughter. My relationship with Pat is one that I think reflects the kind of relationships I wish I had with my grandmothers growing up. That isn’t to disparage my grandmother who has passed on, nor the one who remains with us. I love both very dearly and both have been kind to me, and a source of genuine humor. But we weren’t close friends, which is something I cherish in my relationship with Pat. In addition to being a book about books, which always catches my eye, the fact that she sent it up meant that I began reading it that very day.

Maureen Corrigan is a book reviewer for NPR and writes for the Village Voice, among other things. I wondered going in whether I would find her to be someone I could relate to or if her knowledge and book tastes would be aloof and unrepresentative of the many fictional worlds I like to inhabit. I was pleased to discover a balanced amalgam of both. Not that she is truly aloof, but Maureen Corrigan certainly reads in a critical manner that I do not, discovering things in books that we’ve read in common that I hadn’t even thought of. Mostly things I found myself agreeing with, an occasional few that I didn’t. I also found myself enjoying listening to her tell parts of her life story through her reading experiences, so much so that it did not take me long to finish this 200 page book, despite the ridiculously tiny font used by the publisher.

“Books are wayward. You can begin a book assuming you’re entering one kind of world, getting one kind of message, only to find out that beneath that cover story lurks another kind of tale–or two, or three–altogether. Books can turn us readers around, mess with our directional signals, deposit us, drained and bewildered, on completely foreign shores. A forgettable book disappoints or merely meets our conscious expectations; unforgettable books takes us to places we didn’t even suspect existed, places we may not have even wanted to go.”

I quickly lost track of all the pages that contained quotes that I wanted to remember. Another sign of a good book, in my estimation.

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I Was Told There Would Be Cake ~Sloane Crosley

–published 2008
–Riverhead Books
–230 pages

Portland-bound Richard R., of The Broken Bullhorn, purchased this book recently on a trip to his new hometown and enjoyed it so much he read right through it. Having become a fan of the essay in recent years, thanks to authors like Anne Fadiman, Nick Hornby, and David Sedaris, my bookish ears perk right up when they hear mention of a page-turning essay collection. I quickly ordered it through my library and when it turned up in my local branch on Saturday, I dropped everything, picked it up, and didn’t put it down until I had finished it (Sunday evening).

Pressed for time? Go ahead and add this to your To Be Read list and proceed with your day. If you need a bit more convincing, or don’t have anything better to do, read on. I promise I’ll try to be entertaining.

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