A Million Years in a Day

A Curious History of Everyday Life from the Stone Age to the Phone Age

By: Greg Jenner

Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies

Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

Who invented beds? When did we start cleaning our teeth? How old are wine and beer? Which came first: the toilet seat or toilet paper? What was the first clock?

Every day, from the moment our alarm clock wakes us in the morning until our head hits our pillow at night, we all take part in rituals that are millennia old. Structured around one ordinary day, A Million Years in a Day reveals the astonishing origins and development of the daily practices we take for granted. In this gloriously entertaining romp through human history, Greg Jenner explores the gradual—and often unexpected—evolution of our daily routines.

This is not a story of wars, politics, or great events. Instead, Jenner has scoured Roman rubbish bins, Egyptian tombs, and Victorian sewers to bring us the most intriguing, surprising, and sometimes downright silly historical nuggets from our past.

Drawn from across the world, spanning a million years of humanity, this book is a smorgasbord of historical delights. It is a history of all those things you always wondered about—and many you have never considered. It is the story of your life, one million years in the making.

"[Jenner] crafts some fine aphorisms ('History doesn't repeat itself—people do'), and it would be a staggeringly learned person who could not glean anything new from this work." —The Wall Street Journal

©2015 Greg Jenner (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Erudite, witty, and packed with things you've never thought about." (Dr. Peter Frankopan, author of Silk Roads)

good

Didn't like the author's narrative style very much nor the narrator's reading, but the book was very well researched and pretty interesting

I wish Greg narrated this!

The book was great, but I wish Greg had narrated it himself. I love his other book and podcast!

Super interesting!

Loved it. Very entertaining and full of odd and interesting facts. A BBC style doc for your ears.

Light hearted journey through history on everyday living

This is an entertaining books of historical trivia/factoids on everyday living.
The author’s humor and the performance are great.
This book is more broad in its scope than deep. Abbreviated versions of historical events were depicted rather than a long whimsy explanation.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book!

INTRESTING

The whole book was interesting and now I know a bunch of useless fun facts :)

I returned this book

The premise of this book is outstanding. Understanding the development of our modern world in the context of a single day was compelling.

BUT I could not tolerate the lame jokes, wise cracking metaphors, and snide references to current events. Regrettably, the narrator struggles with the puerile tone. And that combination had me throwing in the towel.

An alternative I'd recommend is Bill Bryson's At Home.

Childish

The book had some potential as a lightly factual chronicle of daily life through the ages. Instead, it veers to the asinine and juvenile, using as many words for toilet activities as possible. Might be mildly useful for a particularly dense 12 year old.

All the thumbs down

Booooo this book is awful. Its like: historical fact, comical metaphor, historical fact, comical metaphor historical fact, comical metaphor and so on. Anything is fair game. A frisbee, a sports car, sunning black cat, bumping uglies...
also I hate a book that talks to me like it knows me and assumes my predetermined assumptions about things like cavemen and clocks
Boooooooo dont waste your time
Also the endless cell phone/modern technology references seem like a grampy wrote the book