Bill's back with another tomb of fascinating facts to intrigue.
This volume is rather tenuously held together by following him through his English country home and having explained the history of how everyday things have a history.
Tenuous it is, this is really a potted history of the 18th and 19th century, and like all Bryson writes it is excellent.
We are just absolutely bombarded with facts, swamped i.e the great fire of London only resulted in 5 deaths but the first great fire of London in 1212 resulted in 12,000 deaths, I didn't know but Bill and his researches did. Jim Atkinson invented the mouse trap and sold the patent for 1000 pound, cheap even then.
You can literally open this book on any page and find some useful information and there are 483 pages.
Like his previous A Short History of Nearly Everything, you will pick this up and dip into it over and over.
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