A Million Years in a Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life from the Stone Age to the Phone Age Hardcover – June 21, 2016

I loved this book after reading it myself, and then bought it to give to my 15 yr old grandson. The research and history in it is extensive, the subjects fun from getting up in the am to bathroom functions to eating to spending the day to preparing for bed, each is a chapter. The "naughty" bits like "toilet" questions are handled w/a maximum of decorum, but are questions all kids (and many adults) wanna know. The questions involving "sex" are also skillfully handled so as to answer the queries, but in a non-prurient way.I recommend this book for any person over 12. As a Classicist, i can attest to Jenner's sources and thus feel confident that he has done the necessary research for all his topics.

This book is brilliant - funny yet highly informative. A wonderful gift for the curious person in your life (me) and funny to boot. Buy it, then buy it for your friends and family!

I like histories that talk about ordinary life, and I had great hopes for this one. Alas, the organization was very scattershot, the bibliography was non-existent, and the author was fond of inserting little tidbits like "Britsh men like to pee standing up" that were supposed to be humorous but fell flat for me. Don't bother

Fascinating with a new fact on every page. Very easy read; tinged with dry humor! Loved it!

Good Read and entertaining

I love this book. So amusing that I read a lot of it to my family. Very worth while for anybody.

Very well written, and weaves a most revealing tale. Even if you're a know it all, you're guaranteed to be surprised a few times herein.

Ok. Expected something more crude.

Endlessly interesting, this is a potted history of many of the everyday things we take for granted. Greg Jenner leads us through an average modern Saturday explaining the origins of many things including time, pets, alcohol, teeth-cleaning, table manners and (as you would expect from a co-writer of Horrible Histories) toilets (among many many more). Written in a light entertaining style he shows us that most things we consider modern and sophisticated have their genesis in the stone age. We aren't so removed from our ancestors after all.Highly recommended for anyone who loves history and/or random facts.

I really enjoyed this book about the history of everyday things and customs. It was written in an accessible way with great humour - even if that was sometimes a little juvenile - and with great attention to detail. His 'protagonist' didn't seem to do much during the day. As it was a Saturday perhaps he might have gone to the football or some other sporting event. I'd love to know the history of that. Maybe his wife - when she wasn't cooking for the dinner party - could have been doing some knitting or sewing. Again, the history of crafts would have been great. Oh, and what about DIY? Maybe in your next book, Greg Jenner?

This book is an interesting and mildly amusing ramble through developments in human daily life. Much may be gleaned from it. However, there is no history in its truest sense here, to show the interconnections between people, cultures, wars, economic and politics that led to innovations and their adoption.This is hinted at occasionally, but we are hurried on to look at the next fact, with what I found to be increasingly irritating jokey similes. Almost every statement seems be followed by a likening to a humorous modern situation.With such ambitious scope, this curiosity based approach is perhaps unavoidable, and the range of research is impressive, but I would have liked more depth, such as more on the interaction between the Arab world and medieval Europe.

This book was fun to read and had a tonne of info in it, I loved how it was laid out across a single day and connected history from all over the world.The reason I gave it 3 stars was because the writing rubbed me up the wrong way a bit - it tried too hard to be funny in my opinion,and while occasionally its witicisms elicited genuine laughter and smiles, usually the jokes fell flat, felt awkward, and often reinforced problematic stereotypes about women.I would however still recommend it to anyone interested in history as it gives a great overview of the everyday lives of humans throughout time.

There should be special minus stars for books whose authors have had a perfectly decent idea, done a great deal of good work, and then gone and spoiled it all.Here's a light-hearted compendium of social-historical snippets, what people who don't understand the term refer to as trivia. The structure is a little contrived, but works well enough, and the myriad facts are wide-ranging, many of them unfamiliar to this reader and often fascinating.Alas, the author has chosen to pad out what could have been an agreeable little book with a relentless succession of humorous asides, largely puerile and often vulgar (which is fine) and entirely, irredeemably unfunny.Things may improve in the second half of the book, but your reviewer hadn't the patience to find out.