I read some of the more outrageous tidbits to my husband, who pretty much refuses to believe that they’re true. They always say that truth is stranger than fiction. I’m now full of trivia about all kinds of things that could even remotely be considered to have anything to do with private life. I am not a huge fan of non-fiction, so I don’t know that I could really have enjoyed this as much if I had read it straight through with no breaks, but as an in-between book, I really enjoyed it. But I promise you it all flows together, and it’s all interesting in the way that only Bill Bryson can pull off. “The nursery” goes from childbirth to child labor to poor house conditions to the repression of wealthy children to conditions at boarding schools. It all flowed together naturally and I only questioned how I had gotten to one subject if I really stopped to think about a particular chapter title. It’s roughly arranged by room, but my gosh, it travels around on some tangents. But at least now I know who invented the traps my husband set out! Reading about how ingenious rats are as I hear the pitter-pat of little rodent feet in my attic space is not necessarily a good idea. I read this slowly as my before-bed book, and I’m not sure that was always a good idea. Bill Bryson looked around his house one day, realized how little he knew about the everyday objects surrounding him, and, being Bill Bryson, decided to research and write a book about them. We take so much in our daily lives for granted.
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