At Home

I finished Anne of the Island, which was actually quite a bit more interesting than Anne of Avonlea, and then started Bill Bryson's new book At Home.  He uses the Victorian house he and his family live in as a framework for explaining the history of why we live in houses and how different aspects of them that we think of as common (kitchens, living rooms, etc.) came about.  It's similar to his A Brief History of Everything, though smaller in scope.

I've already learned tons of interesting things, and I've barely made a dent in the 400+ page book.  Did you know in the 1850s a complete village over 5000 years old was discovered in Britain?  That's older than Stonehenge and the pyramids.  It's called Skara Brae, and it has surprisingly modern aspects - locking doors, dressers, a drainage system, even elementary plumbing.  I had no idea.