And for the curious minded, At Home

Bill Bryson is fast becoming one of my more favorite authors.  His A Short History of Nearly Everything, though perhaps not quite that comprehensive, did give a rather overwhelming history of us (homo sapiens) and how we got here.  His next book, At Home, has a terser focus that covers a far more manageable area (though perhaps 'terse' is not the right word to use where Bryson is concerned).  Though Bryson's tour of the home goes from room to room, he takes us on a journey from ancient Rome to the tea plantations of China, all in an effort to better understand how our homes became just that--home.  Bryson's genius is a child-like quest for explanation and an uncanny ability to explicate the answers he finds in an entertaining manner.  In the book, the reader will meet some incredible people and hear some even more incredible stories of both folly and triumph.  The world is an interesting place and Bryson once again proves that fact is stranger than fiction.  Highly recommended.