From sewers to creatures living in wigs to the history of spices, this book wanders all over the place. It only occasionally and seemingly accidentally lands on the topic it's supposed to be about—the history of the home and things in it. But it's well written and fascinating nonetheless. Bryson subdues his normal tendencies of crudeness and snarky ridicule of things he disagrees with, although in the last chapter (supposedly about the attic), he launches into praise for Darwin and a warning about global warming.