A Million Years in a Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life from the Stone Age to the Phone Age

Jenner, a cowriter of the BBC’s Horrible Histories series, muses about the historical antecedents of activities on a typical British Saturday in this entertaining work. He begins his day at 9:30 a.m. and proceeds to consider humans’ historical and varied methods of dividing time, setting the pattern for succeeding chapters. Over the course of the day, Jenner reflects on the keeping of pets, human communication technologies, clothing, alcohol, dining, and even tooth-brushing. His extensive coverage of bodily functions in the chapter on “Answering the Call of Nature” may be a bit much for some readers, but he shows that humans have done some fairly gross things in our past (see the section on bathing, for instance). The fact-checking isn’t always flawless—for instance, Jenner credits Charles Wesley with the first utterance of “Cleanliness is next to godliness” rather than his brother John—but this is a fun book, not a scholarly tome. His sources are also overwhelmingly Eurocentric, though he does include some references to Asia and the Americas. Jenner’s book is an amusing examination of what we humans do with ourselves all day. Agent: Donald Winchester, Watson Little (U.K.). (June)