Bill Bryson

He's famous as a brilliant and funny travel writer, but in his new book, At Home: A Short History of Private Life, Bill Bryson goes on a very different kind of journey: around his house. Forget everything you thought you knew about your humble abode. It has a history as fascinating as any nation's.

Explain in your own words the premise of this book. What's the elevator pitch?

I was sitting at the kitchen table, just idly fingering the salt and pepper shakers, and thought, There's been salt and pepper at every kitchen table I've ever sat at. Why those two? Then I started looking around the house and realizing that there were all kinds of things I didn't know.

Did you find out the answer about the salt and pepper shakers?

I did. Salt, basically, is vitally important to us. There's salt in things you don't think of as salty, like ice cream and breakfast cereal. Pepper is more complicated, but fundamentally, it was at one time an extremely precious and expensive spice. So it's a sort of relic of luxury on our table.

The book is shot through with references to 1851, the year everything circles back to.

It is the year my house was built and also the year of the Great Exhibition in London--a pivotal year in stepping into the modern world. Anybody alive in 1851 who lived long enough would go from this world that was essentially medieval to this world that included automobiles and the Wright brothers.

The label "travel writer" is still applied to you. Is that a category you've moved past?

Oh, not necessarily. The one country I would love to do is Canada. I love that when you open a weather map in an American newspaper, above the U.S. there's just a blank grayness. I find the way we kind of ignore Canada fascinating.