White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People To Talk About Racism by Robin Diangelo 

Read by Amy Landon 

Published June 2018 by Beacon Press 

Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher’s Summary: In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively. 

My Thoughts: Through research, personal stories, and examples, Diangelo (a race scholar and diversity trainer) addresses how racism has been engrained in us since this country was formed.

“[Thomas] Jefferson suggested that there were natural differences between the races and asked scientists to find them.”

“American scientists began searching for the answer to the perceived inferiority of non-Anglo groups. Illustrating the power of our questions to shape the knowledge we validate, these scientists didn’t ask “Are blacks and others inferior?” They asked “Why are blacks and others inferior?””

“Exploitation came first and then the ideology of unequal races to justify this exploitation followed.”

Over the ensuing decades, the courts have continued to uphold the inferiority of nonwhites. And while many whites have suffered from the ill effects of classism, they have always known that it was “better to be white.” Every time we’ve celebrated a person of color “breaking the color barrier,” we neglect to say that it only happened because whites allowed it to finally happen, implying there was only just now a person of color capable of achieving that level of success. “Narratives of racial exceptionality obscure the reality of ongoing institutional white control while reinforcing the ideologies of individualism and meritocracy.” 

“White resistance to the term “white supremacy” prevents us from examining how these messages shape us. Explicit white supremacists understand this.” Diangelo explains how the alt-right and white nationalists have spent thirty years reworking their messages to make them more palatable, to blend in. They’ve adopted messages against affirmative action, immigration, and globalism as veiled attacks on persons of color and, in so doing, have convinced a significant portion of other whites that their messages are valid and reasonable without those people even realizing the inherent racism in the messages. Diangelo also contends that millennials are every bit as mired in racism as the generations ahead of them and that claims of color blindness harm our ability to accept our own racism. 

'“White fragility”: the reaction in which white people feel offended or attacked when the topic of racism arises.”*

You know I’ve been doing a lot of reading this year about racism and working to educate myself on what it means to be black in this country. A lot of that reading has been uncomfortable, in no small part because it didn’t just call out white people in general, but me in particular. Diangelo takes it to a whole new level for me. 

She calls white people out on the ways we deny racism and how we, so often, make ourselves the victim when confronted about racism. I’m sorry to say that I saw myself frequently in her examples. I have even, once, fallen into the “white women’s tears” scenario Diangelo talks about, whereby a white woman, feeling attacked about being called out, starts crying, drawing the attention away from the person who was legitimately injured. 

Diangelo says that “it is common to feel defensive if you believe that you are being told you are a bad person.” She points to what she calls the good/bad binary that has reinforced our resistance to admitting our racism. We’ve been raised to believe that only bad people are racists and, not considering ourselves bad people, cannot accept that we have done anything wrong. What, then, can those of us who would like to make changes in the way we think do? We can’t define racism as only “a conscious intolerance of black people.” Diangelo says that we must “identify our racist patterns” and make it more important to interrupt those patterns than managing how we think we look to others. She has raised my awareness and given me the tools to be a better ally and a better person. Now I need to work hard to make them a part of my life, every day. 

“The value of “White Fragility” lies,” says the reviewer from The New Yorker, “…in its call for humility and vigilance.” *Publisher’s Weekly

Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

Hood Feminism: Notes From The Women That A Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall 

Read by Mikki Kendall

Published February 2020 by Penguin Publishing Group 

Source: audiobook checked out from my local library 

Publisher’s Summary: Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord, and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others? 

In her searing collection of essays, Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence, and hypersexualization, along with incisive commentary on politics, pop culture, the stigma of mental health, and more, Hood Feminismdelivers an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux. An unforgettable debut, Kendall has written a ferocious clarion call to all would-be feminists to live out the true mandate of the movement in thought and in deed. 

My Thoughts: Almost four years ago, I marched in the first Women’s March. Almost immediately, there was an outcry that the movement didn’t represent women of color. “What are they talking about,” I wondered. “Aren’t all of the things feminism has been fighting for thing all women want?” The answer, as it turns out, is yes…and no. Yes, all women should be fighting against sexual harassment and assault; but white women need to recognize that women of color suffer from this issue in far greater numbers. Sure, all women may want to see the glass ceiling broken; but white women need to acknowledge that they are in a far better position to benefit from that than women of color. And do you remember when being a feminist meant you didn’t shave your legs? It seems silly now (and, honestly, it was probably a silly gesture 40+ years ago), especially when you consider that women of color are far more concerned about basic survival than whether or not they can stop shaving their armpits. 

Some years ago, I decided to try to read more diversely. I picked up books by Asian authors, books set in Africa, books about minorities here. But it really wasn’t until this year that I’ve really started waking up to the fact that reading diversely sometimes means reading books that make me uncomfortable, that challenge what I have believed or wake me up to things that I had no idea were happening in this country. This is one of those books. I tend to get defensive when I start reading (I’m working on that), so it can take a bit before I stop defending and start listening. But it’s hard to argue with the idea that white women have been so myopic in their fight for equal rights that they’ve ignored the fact that millions of women don’t know how they are going to feed their families, receive subpar educations, don’t earn a living wage because of our minimum wage, live with violence daily, and watch their men being criminalized in disproportionate numbers. 

Kendall is, understandably, angry about what she feels like is a betrayal. And, let’s be honest, it’s not the first time that white women have left women of color behind to further themselves. White women wouldn’t have earned the right to vote when they did had it not been for the work of black women; but when push came to shove, white women saved themselves. Perhaps they promised to circle back and bring up their sisters; they never did. It’s easy to imagine that women of color feel like the same thing has happened to them again. Not only have white women not worked to pull up their sisters, a majority of middle-aged white women voted for a man who has done everything in his power to keep people of color down. 

Perhaps the best way to make change is to be in positions of leadership where doing that is possible but Kendall wants us to remember that too many women continue to suffer while white women try to climb their way up to those positions. Almost four years ago, millions of women captured the world’s attention by rising up and demanding change. We weren’t waiting then for our chance to be on top (although we were angry that we had just lost that) and we need to stop waiting now.

The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and The Invention of Los Angeles by Gary Krist

The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and The Invention of Los Angeles by Gary Krist

Published May 2018 by Crown Publishing Group

Source: checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:
Little more than a century ago, the southern coast of California—bone-dry, harbor-less, isolated by deserts and mountain ranges—seemed destined to remain scrappy farmland. Then, as if overnight, one of the world’s iconic cities emerged. At the heart of Los Angeles’ meteoric rise were three flawed visionaries: William Mulholland, an immigrant ditch-digger turned self-taught engineer, designed the massive aqueduct that would make urban life here possible. D.W. Griffith, who transformed the motion picture from a vaudeville-house novelty into a cornerstone of American culture, gave L.A. its signature industry. And Aimee Semple McPherson, a charismatic evangelist who founded a religion, cemented the city’s identity as a center for spiritual exploration. 

All were masters of their craft, but also illusionists, of a kind. The images they conjured up—of a blossoming city in the desert, of a factory of celluloid dreamworks, of a community of seekers finding personal salvation under the California sun—were like mirages liable to evaporate on closer inspection. All three would pay a steep price to realize these dreams, in a crescendo of hubris, scandal, and catastrophic failure of design that threatened to topple each of their personal empires. Yet when the dust settled, the mirage that was LA remained.

My Thoughts:                                                                                                                                                  The more nonfiction I read, the more I find that I'm a gal of many interests I didn't even know I had. Thank heavens for people who can convince me to take a chance on a subject like the rise of Los Angeles, a place I've never even been. 

Krist's book focuses on how three people changed the course of history for Los Angeles. They are all three people I knew of but I had no real idea the impact they had on the growth of Los Angeles from a place that should have remained a remote town to the second-largest city in the U.S. Krist covers the period from 1900 - 1930 and moves the book between these three players. Each of their stories and each of their industries would make for great reading, especially in the hands for a storyteller as good as Krist. That they all came about as part of the growth of Los Angeles makes for a fascinating read. 

As Krist moved back and forth between the three industries - movies, water, and religion - I kept thinking that the one I was reading about was the most interesting. Which wasn't altogether surprising when I was reading about the movie industry; I knew a fair amount about it and have always found it interesting. And religion? It certainly can be interesting. But water and engineering? How in the world did Krist manage to make me interested in that? Well, there were intrigues, land battles, ruined friendships, and a major disaster, so there's that. But Krist also makes it about the players and the David and Goliath aspect of it all. 

Perhaps part of what made this book so compelling was that, while it was historical, it was also incredibly timely. The battle between urban and rural, the machinations of the media, the impact of technology, race, corruption, and the  influence of big money on politics, religion, and the movie industry are every bit as relevant today as they were in the 1920's. 

The Mirage Factory is clearly meticulously researched but it hardly even feels like nonfiction and it certainly doesn't feel like Krist is trying to force facts into the narrative, as so many writers do. Krist also wrote City of Scoundrels, a book I've had on my Nook for a long time; somewhere along the way someone had convinced me that a book about the rebirth of another city, Chicago, was worth reading. As much as I enjoyed this book, I'm really looking forward to finding time for that one soon. 

The Fire This Time edited by Jesmyn Ward

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race edited by Jesmyn Ward
Read by Cherise Booth, Michael Early, Kevin R. Free, Korey Jackson, Susan Spain
Published August 2016 by Scribner
Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher’s Summary:
In light of recent tragedies and widespread protests across the nation, The Progressive magazine republished one of its most famous pieces: James Baldwin’s 1962 “Letter to My Nephew,” which was later published in his landmark book, The Fire Next Time. Addressing his fifteen-year-old namesake on the one hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Baldwin wrote: “You know and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon.”



Award-winning author Jesmyn Ward knows that Baldwin’s words ring as true as ever today. In response, she has gathered short essays, memoir, and a few essential poems to engage the question of race in the United States. And she has turned to some of her generation’s most original thinkers and writers to give voice to their concerns.



The Fire This Time is divided into three parts that shine a light on the darkest corners of our history, wrestle with our current predicament, and envision a better future. Of the eighteen pieces, ten were written specifically for this volume.



In the fifty-odd years since Baldwin’s essay was published, entire generations have dared everything and made significant progress. But the idea that we are living in the post-Civil Rights era, that we are a “post-racial” society is an inaccurate and harmful reflection of a truth the country must confront. Baldwin’s “fire next time” is now upon us, and it needs to be talked about.



Contributors include Carol Anderson, Jericho Brown, Garnette Cadogan, Edwidge Danticat, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Mitchell S. Jackson, Honoree Jeffers, Kima Jones, Kiese Laymon, Daniel Jose Older, Emily Raboteau, Claudia Rankine, Clint Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Wendy S. Walters, Isabel Wilkerson, and Kevin Young.

My Thoughts:
Jesmyn Ward kicks off this book with a startling recollection from a visit she and some high school classmates made to the office of Trent Lott, then one of her state’s senators, in Washington.

“Trent Lott took a whip as long as a car off his office table, where it lay coiled and shiny brown, and said to my one male schoolmate who grinned at Lott enthusiastically: Let’s show ‘em how us good old boys do it. And then he swung that whip through the air and cracked it above our heads, again and again. I remember the experience in my bones.” 

Given Ward’s age, this must have been in the mid-1990’s. It is shocking to think that Lott found that behavior perfectly acceptable. James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time that love would allow us to “end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country…” Sadly, more than 20 years after Wards encounter with Lott and almost 60 years since Baldwin’s book was published, Lott’s actions seem to speak to the way some white Americans still think about black people. Consider that this book was published four years ago, just as our first black president was finishing out his second term and just before we elected a president who has courted the kind of people who think like Trent Lott. Four years after it was published, this book feels even more timely.

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah perhaps says it best, “If I knew anything about being black in America, it was that nothing was guaranteed.” Again and again, the names Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Abner Louima, and those killed at Charleston’s Emanuel Church are invoked as a reminder of this. But Ward also wants to remind us, “We are writing an epic, wherein black lives carry worth.” How sad that we need to be reminded.

The authors of these pieces want us to understand both points. Claudia Rankine writes about being the mother of black sons; Garnette Cadogan writes about how different walking as a black man was when he moved from Jamaica to New Orleans, where he suddenly was perceived by some as being a danger; Mitchell S. Jackson reflects on the father figures in his life, good and bad; Ghansah writes about being the first person of color working for an employer; and Edwidge Danticat writes about needing to have two conversations with her daughters to explain “why we’re here” and “why it’s not always a promised land for people who look like us.

The reading for this book is excellent; but, in listening to it, I did this book a disservice. If you were, say, sitting on your patio listening to a book while relaxing, sure, it would be great. But if you are listening to this book while you are doing other things (which I was), it will not have the impact it almost certainly would have had if you had picked it up and read it in print. I wish I had done that. I’ve had to go back and re-listen to a number of passages before I could write this review and it has made all the difference. This book deserved my full attention.

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
Read by Carrie Fisher
Published September 2009 by Simon and Schuster
Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher’s Summary:
Intimate, hilarious, and sobering, Wishful Drinking is Fisher, looking at her life as she best remembers it (what do you expect after electroshock therapy?). It’s an incredible tale: the child of Hollywood royalty—Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher—homewrecked by Elizabeth Taylor, marrying (then divorcing, then dating) Paul Simon, having her likeness merchandized on everything from Princess Leia shampoo to PEZ dispensers, learning the father of her daughter forgot to tell her he was gay, and ultimately waking up one morning and finding a friend dead beside her in bed. 

This is Carrie Fisher at her best—revealing her worst. She tells her true and outrageous story of her bizarre reality with her inimitable wit, unabashed self-deprecation, and buoyant, infectious humor.

My Thoughts:
The other day I finished the book I had been listening to and started the next one that I had on loan from the library only to discover that I just could not listen to it. Not that day, not in that frame of mind. I needed something light. I often call the books I read between heavier books “sorbet” books. But what I had in mind this time was something more like chicken broth for the brain – I needed to feel better. I wasn’t sure what that would be – a mystery, something funny, perhaps, gasp!, a romance? I started browsing what was available right now that wasn’t too long. I looked at a lot of options; but I knew this was the one as soon as I found it.

Wishful Drinking is based on Fisher’s show of the same name and I can’t tell you how much I wish, after hearing this, that I had been able to see her perform the show. We already know a lot of what Fisher has to say (who her parents are, how they were broken up, who she married, that she was an addict, etc.). But Fisher tells her life story in the way of any great storyteller: filling in, embellishing, and making even the saddest things funny. No one, with the possible exception of her ex-husband, Paul Simon, is safe from her wit. She says that her mother was horrified when she found out that Fisher had begun cooking for her daughter, insisting that she would send her cook over to take care of the cooking. She mocks her parents’ multiple marriages, George Lucas’ directing, and the famous friends she partied with.

As funny as she is, Fisher is also brutally honest about her addictions and her battle with mental illness. Pretty heavy topics but, again, Fisher finds away to make them funny. She says that it was hard for doctors to diagnose her bipolar disorder because the effects of her drug and alcohol abuse so closely mirrored the symptoms of that disorder. In the end, to battle her depression, Fisher needed electroconvulsive therapy and I’ll be damned if she didn’t find a way to make even that hilarious.

Now I’m sure that this book is funny in print. But if you haven’t read it yet, I cannot recommend highly enough that you listen to it instead of reading it in print. Fisher’s comic timing is impeccable and that last few minutes of the book simply wouldn’t be the same without her reading them. This was just the book I needed!

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Published March 2020 by Random House Publishing Group

Source: checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:

This is how you find yourself. 

There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees, and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and wonder: Wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent—even from ourselves. 

For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There She Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realized they had come to her from within. This was her own voice—the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning, and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to quit abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world’s expectations of her. She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living. 

Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is. 

Untamed shows us how to be brave. As Glennon insists: The braver we are, the luckier we get.

My Thoughts:

I don't really know why I requested this book from my library, which should tell you that I had no idea what it was about when I requested it. Fiction? Nonfiction? Short stories? Literally, no idea. Imagine my surprise, as someone who reads very little in the way of what might be called "self-help" books to find that this, then, is what I was reading. 

I'll be honest; it took me a little while to get into this one, even though Doyle certainly has a interesting story and, for the most part, I enjoyed her writing style. Oh heck, let's just get the stuff I didn't like out of the way while we're here. The first thing is that I couldn't quite tell if this was a series of articles or writings that happened organically or if Doyle sat down to write the book straight through, which wouldn't be a big deal except that there were what I would call, for lack of a better phrase, a continuity problem. In one chapter, Doyle would continually refer to her wife and in the next chapter she would call her by name; there was very little point in saying "my wife" so often after that (unless she still just loves to hear that, which she might). That's a little thing, just a niggling annoyance. But what I liked less (and it's a problem I often have with this kind of book), was the "I've got it all figured out and my way is right" impression I often got from Doyle. The thing is, there's plenty here to suggest that she spent a lot of years getting to this point and made a lot of mistakes along the way. Maybe what I want is something along the lines of "I screwed up a lot but here's an example of a time I feel like I got it right and maybe it would work for you, too." 

All that said, I liked this book overall. I liked it a lot. 

Having an addict in the family has made me appreciative of what it takes for a person to overcome their addictions. I guarantee that Doyle doesn't get us the full story of how she recovered. It's certainly possible to wake up one day and decide you're going to get clean but it doesn't keep happening without struggle and we don't see that. But that's not what the book is about so it's ok and I can understand how that may have influenced the way she lived after that. 

As a person who knew early on that I wanted to be a mother, I often find it annoying when people make it seem that being devoted to your children is also killing your true self. On the other hand, when I was a stay-at-home mom, it didn't take me long to realize that I needed more and I had to find a way to make that work. Doyle makes it clear that deciding that she needed to live for herself as much as she lived for her children didn't mean she loved her children less or mothered them less. 

Doyle writes a lot about feelings and how we need to allow ourselves to feel all of our feelings and to listen to what they are telling us; "...being fully human is not about feeling happy it's about feeling everything." 

"Feeling all your feelings is hard, but that's what they're for. Feelings are for feeling. All of them. Even the hard ones. The secret is that you're doing it right, and that doing it right hurts sometimes." 

In other words, it's ok to be sad. Or angry. But also, spend some time with those feelings and find out why you are sad or angry. It's an opportunity to learn something about yourself and a chance to do things differently to try to avoid being sad or angry for that same reason again and again. 

"Consumer culture promises us that we can buy our way out of pain - that the reason we're sad and angry is not that being human hurts; it's because we don't have those countertops, her thighs, these jeans. It's a clever way to run an economy, but it is no way to run a life. Consuming keeps us distracted, busy, and numb. Numbness keeps us from becoming."

I highlighted a lot of passages about bravery, raising girls and boys and how we are programmed from an early age, revolution, mental illness, and helping people. But where Doyle really grabbed me and convinced me that she was someone that I will keep following, was when she wrote about racism and religion. You know by what I've been reading (and especially if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram), that I've been working hard to educate myself about racism and to change my ingrained thinking. Again and again, I've seen black people tell white people to ask their white friends that know more than they do how they can help. Doyle feels like that person, the one you can turn to who will help you understand and do better. 

I've been struggling with religion for years and about a year ago, I had all but given up on it entirely. But my daughter, who has learned through her recovery to believe in a Higher Spirit which is not necessarily God, has always kept me thinking about that idea. But I wasn't sure how that worked for me. Doyle, who does believe in God, gave up on organized religion a while ago but writes extensively about her faith. "In fact, my favorite idea of faith is  a belief in the unseen order of things." Doyle's ideas about faith spoke to me. Before I return this book to the library, I'll be reading those passage again and will be taking notes that I can refer back to when I need it. 

So while I may have had some problems with this book, there was so much that felt like Doyle knew exactly what I needed to hear. She's not a writer, or a person, for everyone. But Doyle is ok with that. She's worked hard to get to that point in her life. 

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

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

Read by Bill Bryson

Published October 2011 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:

In these pages, the beloved Bill Bryson gives us a fascinating history of the modern home, taking us on a room-by-room tour through his own house and using each room to explore the vast history of the domestic artifacts we take for granted. As he takes us through the history of our modern comforts, Bryson demonstrates that whatever happens in the world eventually ends up in our home, in the paint, the pipes, the pillows, and every item of furniture. Bryson has one of the liveliest, most inquisitive minds on the planet, and his sheer prose fluency makes At Home one of the most entertaining books ever written about private life.

My Thoughts:

Publisher's Weekly calls Bill Bryson's exploration of the history of our homes and lives "free-ranging" and I think that is the perfect description. He opens the book writing about the building of the Crystal Palace, home to the 1851 Great Exhibition in England which takes us off into the history of glass making and construction. 

By coincidence, little more than 100 miles away, in the same year a rectory was being built which Bryson would one day be living in and which he would use as a map for this book. In discussing his home, Bryson writes about the history of how homes as we know them developed. We learn about the rectors who occupied homes like the one he lives in, and what they did, which very rarely involved tending to a flock. Once inside we learn about rats and all manner of creepy creatures, the history of the use of and search for spices, furniture through the years, disease and death, childbirth and the raising of children, the industrial revolution and child labor, the way certain words (such as toilet) have changed through the years, and the history of the telephone. 

The book is chock full of information which I found, for the most part, very interesting and wished that I had bought the book so I could refer back to it in the future. But...I often forgot what room we'd started in since Bryson so often went off in a direction that had little to do with the room. Because Bryson's home tended to have rats in the study, that's what Bryson talked about in that chapter but he included nothing about why a room called a "study" ever came into being (although, to be fair, he did touch on, when talking about the change from living in one great hall to having many rooms in a home, that often rooms began being used for a purpose just because there were so many rooms). In some ways, it felt like Bryson had found a lot of interesting information about a lot of things that he wanted to find a way to weave into one book. Bryson certainly does know a lot about the subjects that he's included and stuffed the book full of interesting tidbits; for example, Queen Elizabeth I used to take the silverware home when she visited people's homes. 

Bryson does a marvelous job reading his book but I must say I was surprised to find that he was born in the U.S. and lives here now, given that he speaks with a British accent.