First off, Bryson is a best-selling author of non-fiction books (according to Bill Bryson's official website). Bryson was born in Iowa in 1951 but moved to England in 1977. Bill Bryson started his career off as an author after he worked for a journalism company. Bryson moved back to America in the 1990's, then to the UK where he presently lives with his English wife. Most of his books seem to be about travel he endured throughout his life experiences. I believe most of his audience may be scholars, or just some ordinary people who are intrigued by his writings.
Bryson's At Home seems to fit our academic model as a some-what research assignment. I describe inquiry as an investigation. When I hear 'inquiry', I have a million ideas of different types and styles of investigations taking place; from police investigations to my mom asking me where I was last night. My mom hasn't interrogated me in a couple years, but I still picture her inquisitive voice and facial expression questioning me until I give in.
The introduction to Bryson's book is actually very inquisitive. He asks some of the strangest, yet unexplainable questions that really had me thinking. Why does a fork not have 5 prongs? How did these two seasonings end up on my table? Salt and pepper..? Who would have known!
To be honest, the copy that was posted on our D2L page was a little difficult to read; some small details seemed to be cut out do to copying complications, therefor I rather skimmed through the assigned read. I did howeve, notice countless mysterious, and somewhat horrifying, facts Bryson pointed out. On pages 68-69, Bryson informs about how important bread was in the early centuries. Investigators checked out some of the local bakeries and found that the bakeries were filthy! Cobwebs on the wall drooping down from the weight of the flour dust, random undesirable things were in the food mixtures. At one point, Bryson says that a candy maker actually painted his sweets yellow with the paint used for his, I'm assuming, candy cart! I like how Bryson never says why he is explaining what he is explaining until you actually learn all the details behind something (for instance when Bryson was talking about the bread) then Bryson hits you with a reason for it. Alum was added to flour to whiten it? And before that it was used in industrial facilities? I believe that that was a great example of 'inquiry'. Another example was when he slowly brought up the ice company. Bryson did, however, switch from bread to ice quite abruptly, but I didn't really realize that I was going onto the next subject until I was half way through learning about the Wenham Lake Ice Company.
Bryson seems to go in chronological order throughout his book. I could go on and on about the crazy-yet amazing things he uncovered to me. It was enjoyable reading the passage. The way At Home is written really gets my mind formulating. I love the mystery of wondering what the heck he is trying to get across (see note 1) as I was reading.
NOTE: I couldn't really explain what I was trying to say here much better than what I had said... I was intrigued learning what I was learning even if it had any relation to me or not. I guess what I mean is that I like the way Bryson wrote this book. I think that a research paper should be like this. Overall, the small passage I read (well what was assigned; I didn't read the entire book obviously) was awesome and kept me reading. I didn't feel as if I wanted to skip ahead to the end and summarize, but actually keep reading: that is what I think a good research paper should be like. Inquiry.
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