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“Everyday” can mean commonplace, but it doesn’t in Arthur Asa Berger’s
collection of dissertations on the activities of everyday life. In Bloom’s
Morning (Westview Press, £19/$14, ISBN 0 8133 3230 3) he looks at a
day’s routines and points out the significance of apparently mundane events such
as putting on a shirt. Struck by the acute glimpses of meaning in the progress
from bedroom and bathroom to dressing and breakfast, you will never look at a
pair of socks or a toaster the same way again. The eight-minute reads are
sandwiched between sections on the theory of everyday life and culture.