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Bill Bryson's latest book, out in May, "will do for the social history of private life what he did for science in A Short History of Nearly Everything," according to Transworld m.d. Larry Finlay.
At Home: A Short History of Private Life will take us round Bryson's own house, built in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition. Bryson will visit each room in his English home to explore the history of subjects like crockery (the dining room), household appliances (the kitchen) and sex (the bedroom), investigating the 19th century inventions - like the motor car or the electric light - which marked the birth of the modern era.
Meanwhile veteran novelists Frederick Forsyth and Jilly Cooper are both back in the autumn. Forsyth's The Cobra (September) will tell of a hypothetical US assault on the cocaine industry, while Cooper will present another doorstopper of a novel, currently untitled but set in the world of flat-racing, in October. A new book from legendary scientist Stephen Hawking (The Grand Design, September) will offer his latest thinking about theories of the universe.