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Homework: A Memoir
A portrait of a young boy, who keeps passing exams—and of a changing England in the 1960s and 1970s.
The only child of a dinner lady and a sheet-metal worker, Geoff Dyer grew up in the world of the English working hardworking, respectable, steeped in memories of the Depression and World War II. Accordingly, his memoir is not a story of hardship overcome but a celebration of opportunities afforded by the postwar settlement, of which he was an unconscious beneficiary. The crux comes at the age of eleven with the exam that has decided the future of secondary modern or the transformative promise of grammar school?
One of the lucky winners, Dyer goes to grammar school and begins to develop a love of literature (and beer and prog rock). Only later does he understand that this win entails a loss. The loss is of a sense of belonging and—since this very personal story contains a larger social history—of an eroded but strangely resilient England. “Happenings” were a key part of the sixties mythology; this book traces, in perfectly phrased detail, another kind of happening, whose roots extend into the deep foundations of class society.
Tracing a path from childhood through the tribulations of teenage sport, gig-going, romance, fights (well, getting punched in the face), and other misadventures with comic affection, Homework takes us to the threshold of university, where Dyer first feels the cultural distance from his origins that this book works so imaginatively and tenderly to shrink.
The only child of a dinner lady and a sheet-metal worker, Geoff Dyer grew up in the world of the English working hardworking, respectable, steeped in memories of the Depression and World War II. Accordingly, his memoir is not a story of hardship overcome but a celebration of opportunities afforded by the postwar settlement, of which he was an unconscious beneficiary. The crux comes at the age of eleven with the exam that has decided the future of secondary modern or the transformative promise of grammar school?
One of the lucky winners, Dyer goes to grammar school and begins to develop a love of literature (and beer and prog rock). Only later does he understand that this win entails a loss. The loss is of a sense of belonging and—since this very personal story contains a larger social history—of an eroded but strangely resilient England. “Happenings” were a key part of the sixties mythology; this book traces, in perfectly phrased detail, another kind of happening, whose roots extend into the deep foundations of class society.
Tracing a path from childhood through the tribulations of teenage sport, gig-going, romance, fights (well, getting punched in the face), and other misadventures with comic affection, Homework takes us to the threshold of university, where Dyer first feels the cultural distance from his origins that this book works so imaginatively and tenderly to shrink.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published June 10, 2025
123 people are currently reading
1490 people want to read
About the author
Geoff Dyer
142 books931 followersGeoff Dyer was born in Cheltenham, England, in 1958. He was educated at the local Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is the author of four novels: Paris Trance, The Search, The Colour of Memory, and, most recently, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi; a critical study of John Berger, Ways of Telling; five genre-defying titles: But Beautiful (winner of a 1992 Somerset Maugham Prize, short-listed for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize), The Missing of the Somme, Out of Sheer Rage (a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award), Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It (winner of the 2004 W. H. Smith Best Travel Book Award), and The Ongoing Moment (winner of the ICP Infinity Award for Writing on Photography), and Zona (about Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker). His collection of essays, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2012. He is also the editor of John Berger: Selected Essays and co-editor, with Margaret Sartor, of What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney. A new book, Another Great Day at Sea, about life aboard the USS George H W Bush has just been published by Pantheon.
In 2003 he was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship; in 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; in 2006 he received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2009 he was the recipient of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Best Comic Novel and the GQ Writer of the Year Award (for Jeff in Venice Death in Varanasi). His books have been translated into twenty-four languages. His website is geoffdyer.com
In 2003 he was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship; in 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; in 2006 he received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2009 he was the recipient of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Best Comic Novel and the GQ Writer of the Year Award (for Jeff in Venice Death in Varanasi). His books have been translated into twenty-four languages. His website is geoffdyer.com
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July 7, 2025A passing diversion with an appealing voice, this book offers its readers more than its share of amusing moments. More so if you are "of an age," which is one of my problems, being Geoff Dyer's contemporary. It helps, too, to be British, as all of GD's allusions to musical groups, albums, TV shows, movies will be familiar to those in England's green and pleasant land. Americans, though, will pick up some of the influences that crossed the Pond as well as pop culture sensations so big they broke through borders and geographic barriers.
As well as the story of an only child brought up by middle class parents, this is a story of those parents. You might recognize traits of your own parents here, too, such as a tendency toward being a homebody, being private, not attracting attention, being secretive about money, not spending money, and making do in a way an ancient Greek stoic would salute.
Ah, yes. Ripples from the Depression. Dyer, of course, would relish being the opposite. Loud, outgoing, social, in love with material things in the form of books (spend!), music (spend!) and girls (spend! spend! spend!). As Julie Andrews would sing, these are a few of his favorite things.
For all its delights and Dyer's talent, there is some drudgery. Descriptions of collectible cards which came with the purchase of various products could overstay their welcome. Minutiae like that sneaks in now and again, inciting a bit of #whocares on the part of readers, but it's never for long, and Dyer quickly rights the ship, making you feel like a confidant who would have surely counted Geoff as a friend growing up and, yes, as a friend even now (though he now lives near L.A. vs. Jolly Olde).
If you like memoirs, the 70s, or Geoff Dyer, I'd say definitely worth a tour. And even without, maybe worth it, too. No guarantees in that case, though.
As well as the story of an only child brought up by middle class parents, this is a story of those parents. You might recognize traits of your own parents here, too, such as a tendency toward being a homebody, being private, not attracting attention, being secretive about money, not spending money, and making do in a way an ancient Greek stoic would salute.
Ah, yes. Ripples from the Depression. Dyer, of course, would relish being the opposite. Loud, outgoing, social, in love with material things in the form of books (spend!), music (spend!) and girls (spend! spend! spend!). As Julie Andrews would sing, these are a few of his favorite things.
For all its delights and Dyer's talent, there is some drudgery. Descriptions of collectible cards which came with the purchase of various products could overstay their welcome. Minutiae like that sneaks in now and again, inciting a bit of #whocares on the part of readers, but it's never for long, and Dyer quickly rights the ship, making you feel like a confidant who would have surely counted Geoff as a friend growing up and, yes, as a friend even now (though he now lives near L.A. vs. Jolly Olde).
If you like memoirs, the 70s, or Geoff Dyer, I'd say definitely worth a tour. And even without, maybe worth it, too. No guarantees in that case, though.
March 17, 2025
Dyer’s memoir is a thoughtful and thought-provoking recreation of growing up in the provinces of England in the 1960s and ‘70s where wartime values of make do and mend were still the norm. Grammar schools gave everyone a route to university when a university education could still give you almost guaranteed access to a professional career. But for me, the value of this memoir is as a record of a certain type of quiet life, the sort lived by everyone I knew, before the cutthroat pressure to achieve and make money of the 1980s, before computers and materialism skewed values and ambitions. I enjoyed the nostalgia of being reminded of childhood pastimes and playground crazes, of the freedom to roam that today’s children are denied. Though Dyer is older than me, so his memories of collecting cards and becoming obsessed with prog rock are before my time, I recognise similar pastimes and attitudes. This is an ode to his parents’ simple, no frills life of unthinking duty and repetition. Secondhand, seconds rather than first rate, reconditioned, mended.
My thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read a free digital ARC. The opinions in my review are true and unbiased.
Much of this book seems self indulgent, unless you see it as a necessary documentation of the normal. What elevates it above this is the final episode; perhaps the initiating impulse for writing this memoir of early home life: his mother. She appears regularly throughout his memoir, but almost always as a minor player. At the end, Dyer reveals why she was so quiet and subservient; why she had never followed her dream of becoming a seamstress but had only repaired clothes. Earlier in the book, I felt that Dyer felt that she ought to have tried harder and been less timid. Finally he reveals the secret she tried so hard to keep that utterly sapped her self confidence. This is poignant and entirely understandable.
Throughout his life, Dyer clashed with his parents, particularly his stubborn and selectively principled father. Often embarrassed and frustrated by his father’s penny pinching ways, his father has the last posthumous laugh as his hoarding things ‘in case they come in useful’ ends up costing Dyer a small fortune after his death.
Dyer’s experiences mirror mine remarkably well. Like us, he had a house heated by coal fires (his smoky, ours smokeless anthracite in enclosed stoves). We also had no telephone, though he already had a television (I was ten, I think) and we had no car. The parallels with my own family sometimes reach improbable heights. We too had a pools winner by marriage. I recognise the gas fire with the wooden shelves either side; my grandmother had the same model.
The thing that strikes me is that Geoff Dyer’s childhood world was overwhelmingly male, whereas mine was virtually boy-free after primary school. I have one sister, the girl over the road had siblings who were verging on adulthood and my other early best friend also only had a sister. So I did jigsaw puzzles and handicrafts instead of building Airfix kits; instead of trying to throw a tennis ball down a chimney, I spent hours and hours playing ‘two balls’ (using up to three tennis balls) against my neighbour’s garage wall. I had no idea there were so many different sets of plastic figures for boys to detach and presumably paint. I’m very glad that my equivalent of this was my father’s collection of trains, which only once made it out of the cupboard for a couple of weeks, until my mother got fed up with the layout taking up space. Nothing permanent, though; my fiddly painting experience is limited to painting by numbers. And while Dyer’s father made barracks for his Action Men and his mother made them clothes, our father made my sister and I a predictably modernist dolls’ house that was much admired but little played with, and our mother made psychedelic clothes for our Tressy dolls.
The only thing I didn’t appreciate in Dyer’s memoir were the blow by blow accounts of his early sexual encounters. TMI, as they say. He also assumed a little too much familiarity with certain prog rock bands whose names I only know because my son is a prog rock aficionado. However, for anyone of his generation and interest profile, this memoir is a celebration of a specific period in time and is valuable as a social history of the attitudes and expectations of the time.
My thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read a free digital ARC. The opinions in my review are true and unbiased.
Much of this book seems self indulgent, unless you see it as a necessary documentation of the normal. What elevates it above this is the final episode; perhaps the initiating impulse for writing this memoir of early home life: his mother. She appears regularly throughout his memoir, but almost always as a minor player. At the end, Dyer reveals why she was so quiet and subservient; why she had never followed her dream of becoming a seamstress but had only repaired clothes. Earlier in the book, I felt that Dyer felt that she ought to have tried harder and been less timid. Finally he reveals the secret she tried so hard to keep that utterly sapped her self confidence. This is poignant and entirely understandable.
Throughout his life, Dyer clashed with his parents, particularly his stubborn and selectively principled father. Often embarrassed and frustrated by his father’s penny pinching ways, his father has the last posthumous laugh as his hoarding things ‘in case they come in useful’ ends up costing Dyer a small fortune after his death.
Dyer’s experiences mirror mine remarkably well. Like us, he had a house heated by coal fires (his smoky, ours smokeless anthracite in enclosed stoves). We also had no telephone, though he already had a television (I was ten, I think) and we had no car. The parallels with my own family sometimes reach improbable heights. We too had a pools winner by marriage. I recognise the gas fire with the wooden shelves either side; my grandmother had the same model.
The thing that strikes me is that Geoff Dyer’s childhood world was overwhelmingly male, whereas mine was virtually boy-free after primary school. I have one sister, the girl over the road had siblings who were verging on adulthood and my other early best friend also only had a sister. So I did jigsaw puzzles and handicrafts instead of building Airfix kits; instead of trying to throw a tennis ball down a chimney, I spent hours and hours playing ‘two balls’ (using up to three tennis balls) against my neighbour’s garage wall. I had no idea there were so many different sets of plastic figures for boys to detach and presumably paint. I’m very glad that my equivalent of this was my father’s collection of trains, which only once made it out of the cupboard for a couple of weeks, until my mother got fed up with the layout taking up space. Nothing permanent, though; my fiddly painting experience is limited to painting by numbers. And while Dyer’s father made barracks for his Action Men and his mother made them clothes, our father made my sister and I a predictably modernist dolls’ house that was much admired but little played with, and our mother made psychedelic clothes for our Tressy dolls.
The only thing I didn’t appreciate in Dyer’s memoir were the blow by blow accounts of his early sexual encounters. TMI, as they say. He also assumed a little too much familiarity with certain prog rock bands whose names I only know because my son is a prog rock aficionado. However, for anyone of his generation and interest profile, this memoir is a celebration of a specific period in time and is valuable as a social history of the attitudes and expectations of the time.
June 2, 2025
I very much dislike DNF'ing books. Very much. I think it's unfair to the whole work to stop short, even if it gets dull. I have waded through some books I should have dropped long before.
...And yet. I almost reached the point of DNF'ing this book. I would have, too, if it were not an ARC: at the very least, I got halfway and skimmed the rest.
I liked the premise of this book: set in England in the 1960s and 1970s, there is promised entertainment from other authors' endorsements, and the cover is nice to look at. Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that made this book tedious to read.
I admit freely that I lack any nostalgic connection to being a young boy in Britain in the 1960s/70s, as a young woman in America from the 2000s. This seems to be a big draw for the book: a work that evokes the subtler feelings of the era and area.
In addition, the over-detailing is extremely monotonous. I felt that the paragraphs and pages dedicated to descriptions of toy soldiers, short biographies of Dyer's relatives, and a bicycle made it hard to keep focused on the book.
It is unfortunate that I was not able to dedicate as much attention as I would have liked to the latter half of the book, but there are so many other more tempting books in my queue that I could not bear to spend more time on something I did not enjoy.
Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for the ARC.
...And yet. I almost reached the point of DNF'ing this book. I would have, too, if it were not an ARC: at the very least, I got halfway and skimmed the rest.
I liked the premise of this book: set in England in the 1960s and 1970s, there is promised entertainment from other authors' endorsements, and the cover is nice to look at. Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that made this book tedious to read.
I admit freely that I lack any nostalgic connection to being a young boy in Britain in the 1960s/70s, as a young woman in America from the 2000s. This seems to be a big draw for the book: a work that evokes the subtler feelings of the era and area.
In addition, the over-detailing is extremely monotonous. I felt that the paragraphs and pages dedicated to descriptions of toy soldiers, short biographies of Dyer's relatives, and a bicycle made it hard to keep focused on the book.
It is unfortunate that I was not able to dedicate as much attention as I would have liked to the latter half of the book, but there are so many other more tempting books in my queue that I could not bear to spend more time on something I did not enjoy.
Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for the ARC.
January 11, 2026
Geoff Dyer's enjoyable memoir tracks his life from his birth in 1958 in Cheltenham through to going to University.
The world he describes has now all but vanished. This lost era is especially resonant and poignant if, like me, you can also recall Airfix models, conker fights, football cards, and verrucas.
His parents are the heart of the book including his father's "neurotic miserliness" and his mother's quiet stoic presence.
Probably not for everyone but I really enjoyed it.
4/5
The world he describes has now all but vanished. This lost era is especially resonant and poignant if, like me, you can also recall Airfix models, conker fights, football cards, and verrucas.
His parents are the heart of the book including his father's "neurotic miserliness" and his mother's quiet stoic presence.
Probably not for everyone but I really enjoyed it.
4/5
July 11, 2025
Here is my review of Geoff Dyer's memoir "Homework." You can read it here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/tosh/p/...
https://open.substack.com/pub/tosh/p/...
July 26, 2025
Jesus, this was boring. It was like reading a diary if the diary included zero emotions or insights.
August 17, 2025
Unclear why anyone without the last name Dyer would find this memoir interesting.
November 5, 2025
3.5 Stars!
There are times when Dyer has a way of transforming those little, seemingly inconsequential moments into something profoundly significant, way beyond the sum of their parts. But don’t get me wrong this isn’t all scintillating stuff, there are plenty of moments where recollections are just too bland or self-indulgent to be worthy of being shared beyond the family or friendship circle and they should have been left off the page.
Dyer fully acknowledges his privileges and the opportunities that came his way and he is clearly very grateful for all it has given him and allowed access to, though it obviously involved much hard work on his part too, in order to gain entry to Oxford.
This would have been so much more interesting if we got less coverage of his earliest years and more pages dedicated to his later, teenage ones. That seems like an odd and blatant flaw. So although not great and a little inconsistent and self-indulgent this still radiates plenty of warmth, humour and nostalgia to appeal to long-term Dyer fans. And when the writing is good it can be great, but there’s just a little too much sharing of not very interesting details far too many times in those earlier years.
January 7, 2026
Well, this was my childhood in many ways: I was born three years earlier 8 miles away in Tewkesbury. My dad was from Cheltenham and we visited a lot (eg every Saturday morning to the Odeon cinema). He, like Dyer’s, was a factory worker. So, lots of things chimed: collecting cards, fireball XL5, 11 plus (I went to Tewksbury Grammar), playing football at every opportunity (like him I was a mediocre footballer). Then, music: we had the same albums, eg Family and went to the same gigs, eg Hawkwind at Cheltenham town hall. Dyer brings all these things alive again: he has amazing recall. But, obviously, some things were different (eg my dad was a generous man - with what little he had - and a pub goer - not like Dyer’s miserly father), and even I got a little tired of his obsession with airfix modelling etc. But, for me, an absorbing read.
August 8, 2025
Just brilliant!
August 7, 2025
I am sure I am biased but I thought that this memoir was superb.
I am the right audience. Just slightly younger than GD and at the same university at the same time - some how managing to get in from a poorer background and without a Grammar School education, which was the flukiest fluke imaginable.
But it does mean that I share a very large number of his memories of the era, whether it is the toys or the sweets or the telly. And his memory is exceptional as are his powers of description.
An essential addition to the social history of the 1960s and 1970s and the extraordinariness of an ordinary childhood.
I am the right audience. Just slightly younger than GD and at the same university at the same time - some how managing to get in from a poorer background and without a Grammar School education, which was the flukiest fluke imaginable.
But it does mean that I share a very large number of his memories of the era, whether it is the toys or the sweets or the telly. And his memory is exceptional as are his powers of description.
An essential addition to the social history of the 1960s and 1970s and the extraordinariness of an ordinary childhood.
January 30, 2026
Funny as ever, but more personal, more sincere and poignant, and less ironically arch than many of his books, effortlessly combining personal memoir with an insightful account of British social and cultural history in the 1960s and 70s. A treat to read, especially if you grew up in the same era as I did.
September 28, 2025
If you were born before around 1965 this will be an exercise in nostalgia. Grammar schools, prog albums, reading, sex. There was a whole lot of ‘bloke stuff’ which I skipped over - but it took me back to being an angsty lower middle class teenager listening to Hawkwind hanging around with grammar school boys.
June 17, 2025
As an American who has never travelled around the Cotswolds, this is a distinctly British tale of growing up in approximately the same time or “era” as I grew up in Texas; however, the author writes w/ ferocious detail about his upbringing w/ a modernist perspective, as an only-child near Cheltenham England, west of Oxford, and on an old puzzle map: below Wales, but above Stonehenge.
Chapter one is the phase of early childhood, as the author remembers it, going to Naunton Park Grade School, w/ limited technology, and an active social life, outdoors, in a dominant male friend-group, in post WW-II Britain. The writing style is intelligent, meticulous, humorous, and filled with copious vignettes about the Charlton Park greenspace which was east of Cheltenham.
As the master of the memoir, the prolific author Geoff Dyer, includes his lifetime perspectives on sports, parents, collecting memorabilia, relationships, chores, girls, school, music, romance, and all the aberrant behavior that young boys think is funny. You will be immersed in this skilled, working-class culture, through a young boy’s journey.
As Chapter two unfolds, the small family moves closer to the Cheltenham Grammer School where he was allowed to attend even though slightly outside the district, b/c he passed the national exams w/ flying colors, at age 11+. On Woodlands Road, at the brink of puberty, you would expect wild changes for a young boy trying to find his way in life, wearing purple, bell-bottom hipsters, w/ a soundtrack of popular rock music.
Covering the decades of the sixties, and 70s, in minute cultural detail, in suburban England, may only appeal to a limited audience; however, his singular, complex, intellectual examples, and opinions, often humorous, insightful, and unique; make his creative, non-fiction, a warmly told English boyhood classic, stretching up to and abutting his university years. Covering such phases, makes the reader wonder from a distance: how much is the right amount of sharing what happened in his neighborhood?
I read the first edition by FSGBooks, published in 2025, and it became a page-turner for me, as I became more friendly with the author’s romp through high school, despite having to “cringe-read” some sexually explicit material. He discovers scrubbers, pub-crawls, jankers, conkers, nutting, snogging, cheese-rolling, and Shakespeare, while developing a strong academic record, that ends up as him being a “Fellow” at the Royal Society of Literature. Even in an encapsulated medium of memoir, there is a fancy, funny flair to his writing, and enough "life-lessons" to keep anyone interested in what he learned from history.
In tribute to his burgeoning love for classic books, and despite the minutiae, I kept reading, long after I had figured out what made this boy tick; however, at 80% point, the dysfunctional family trauma-drama flared up at home, and all three involved almost came to blows for reasons of rebellion, frustration, and classic generational conflict in a small house!
These complex musings, from a curious, intellectual life, document and share what he felt growing up, and eventually take on the perspective of losing both his parents. This caused a normal reflection on how he was raised as an only-child, including the successes, and failings of both his "mum" and dad. So as not to give anything more away in spoiler-mode; the last 14% of the book is contained in a powerful Chapter three, that I’ll not discuss, but highly recommend.
Thank-you to my dear Goodreads friend, for this “memoir-gift,” I cannot thank you enough, but now I understand more about this genre, and how with the English, “class” itself, is not a thing, it is a happening.
##
Chapter one is the phase of early childhood, as the author remembers it, going to Naunton Park Grade School, w/ limited technology, and an active social life, outdoors, in a dominant male friend-group, in post WW-II Britain. The writing style is intelligent, meticulous, humorous, and filled with copious vignettes about the Charlton Park greenspace which was east of Cheltenham.
As the master of the memoir, the prolific author Geoff Dyer, includes his lifetime perspectives on sports, parents, collecting memorabilia, relationships, chores, girls, school, music, romance, and all the aberrant behavior that young boys think is funny. You will be immersed in this skilled, working-class culture, through a young boy’s journey.
As Chapter two unfolds, the small family moves closer to the Cheltenham Grammer School where he was allowed to attend even though slightly outside the district, b/c he passed the national exams w/ flying colors, at age 11+. On Woodlands Road, at the brink of puberty, you would expect wild changes for a young boy trying to find his way in life, wearing purple, bell-bottom hipsters, w/ a soundtrack of popular rock music.
Covering the decades of the sixties, and 70s, in minute cultural detail, in suburban England, may only appeal to a limited audience; however, his singular, complex, intellectual examples, and opinions, often humorous, insightful, and unique; make his creative, non-fiction, a warmly told English boyhood classic, stretching up to and abutting his university years. Covering such phases, makes the reader wonder from a distance: how much is the right amount of sharing what happened in his neighborhood?
I read the first edition by FSGBooks, published in 2025, and it became a page-turner for me, as I became more friendly with the author’s romp through high school, despite having to “cringe-read” some sexually explicit material. He discovers scrubbers, pub-crawls, jankers, conkers, nutting, snogging, cheese-rolling, and Shakespeare, while developing a strong academic record, that ends up as him being a “Fellow” at the Royal Society of Literature. Even in an encapsulated medium of memoir, there is a fancy, funny flair to his writing, and enough "life-lessons" to keep anyone interested in what he learned from history.
In tribute to his burgeoning love for classic books, and despite the minutiae, I kept reading, long after I had figured out what made this boy tick; however, at 80% point, the dysfunctional family trauma-drama flared up at home, and all three involved almost came to blows for reasons of rebellion, frustration, and classic generational conflict in a small house!
These complex musings, from a curious, intellectual life, document and share what he felt growing up, and eventually take on the perspective of losing both his parents. This caused a normal reflection on how he was raised as an only-child, including the successes, and failings of both his "mum" and dad. So as not to give anything more away in spoiler-mode; the last 14% of the book is contained in a powerful Chapter three, that I’ll not discuss, but highly recommend.
Thank-you to my dear Goodreads friend, for this “memoir-gift,” I cannot thank you enough, but now I understand more about this genre, and how with the English, “class” itself, is not a thing, it is a happening.
##
September 24, 2025
My Interest
I was, once again, digging through library e-audio listings and liked this cover so I stopped to read about the book. A boy of the 60’s and 70’s in the UK. Well, my brother and I grew up in that era, albeit in the USA. It sounded worth it.
The Story
Author Geoff Dyer grew up in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire not far from where Princess Anne, King Charles and Queen Camilla each have private estates. But Geoff was born to non-Aristo parents. His parents were thoroughly working class, proudly voted Labour, and did not seek life outside their “class.” Geoff managed at age 11 to change the course of his life. For Americans I will explan that this was through passing a national exam known as the “11 Plus,” which sorted children age 11 into three categories for secondary education: trade school [lowest], Comprehensive of “Secondary Modern” for the majority–like a normal U.S. high school but with middle school tagged on, and Grammar School. This last was for the most academically gifted–or at least those best at taking tests. Grammar Schools prepared them for college [University] though, it was possible to go to some colleges with a normal Comprehensive/Secondary Modern education if you worked very hard. Grammar School, though, was the golden ticket to higher education. Imagine being 11–an age at which I was consumed by the school jax tournament, and having to take an exam that decided your future. Only rarely did a student get to move “up” to a Grammar School after this selection.
Back to the memoir. Geoff was an only child and grew up happy and loved with his parents and surrounded by Aunts, Uncles, and a few cousins. He made friends in the normal way, grew up to be attracted to girls, rock and roll, and reading. He built model airplanes, played soccer, collected cards like our baseball cards and in his teen years drank, went to rock concerts, and tried to have you-know-what with girls. He was normal.
My Thoughts
I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to read a memoir that will never be chosen for Oprah’s book club. Those certainly have their place and definitely have helped with my white, middle class education–opening my eyes to the world around me in new ways. But the USA is a scary place right now. It was wonderful to relax and remember Black and White t.v. having one car for the family, going to relatives one night per week, having parents who made us do the right thing and suffering consequences when we did not [no not getting beaten].
What I Enjoyed Most
I loved reading about his play with the British Action Man–our G.I. Joe. Until I was about 8 there were no girls where we lived for me to play with. Coupled with being sick a lot and moving a lot, I mostly played with my older brother who was completely in tune with the things Geoff liked–except “football” for us was the Bears, the Packers, and the Vikings–I had my own football uniform [click to see the photo of me in it}. 3 generations have now played with my brother’s Bart Starr football from Christmas 1968. We played endlessly with my brother’s G.I. Joe and with Johnny West–the cowboy in the photo on the right above. These two fought wars and even went on aquatic manoevers, for my brother–like Geoff with his Action Man, had all kinds of G.I. Joe gear, all carefully kept in G.I. Joe’s offical footlocker. [I thought I had done a post on these toys but I guess not. Maybe sometime soon]. The Man From Uncle and their toys, too, were part of my brothers world. (Later Geoff brought up Alias Smith & Jones a t.v. show my brother loved).
I so enjoyed this part of the book. Building models–I was thrilled when my brother and our uncle finally finished the large scale Jaguar sports car model and chose the British Racing Green paint! Most a roll of film was devoted to this car as it was posed on our living room carpet.
I also nodded “yes” time an again as he discussed the albums and posters he collected in his Grammar School [high school] years. Jethro Tull’s Aqualung was one Geoff bought that my brother also loved. That was so fun,
While I did not share his taste in reading, and oddly neither did my brother very much, it was also enjoyable to read about how he became a reader. American education being what it was at the time, we read a few books condensed and published in our literature textbook, [click for my text on these] and a few smaller novels and Shakespeare play each year of required English in high school. His serious study for what were called A Level goes to and beyond the level of American AP Classes today. His three top grades in his A levels let him go to Christ Church College, Oxford–like getting into Harvard or Stanford here. I actually cheered in the car when he mentioned his grades! I was glad, too, that his parent’s were “ok” with him going. They had decided in his last years at “the Grammar” that he had to have a summer job to “contribute” to the household. This was unheard of in my world-but not in a families less well off.
This book provided a great trip down memory lane, but perhaps the most meaningful part was yet to come. The story of his mother’s huge, life-affecting [self esteem] birthmark and saucer-sized moles was very poignant. That poor lady.
Finally, Geoff’s own trip down memory lane while clearing out his parents’ home of so many years is one many of my friends have taken and one which my brother and I have partially done now. My mother moved to a Senior’s apartment a few years ago so much of that is now cleared, but believe me–there is still plenty in that apartment to go through at the very end. As Geoff found things from his childhood I could well relate. While my Mom made me take all my “crap” [a word she never uses] in about 1997, a few “treasures” have been uneartherd since. Geoff, an only child, found many things to surprise and delight him as he cleared his parents attic. And, then the shock of how true it is that NO ONE wants your stuff when you die. He didn’t mention Swedish Death Cleaning, but, folks? Let’s do that, please.
My Verdict
4.0
Homework: A Memoir by Geoff Dyer
I was, once again, digging through library e-audio listings and liked this cover so I stopped to read about the book. A boy of the 60’s and 70’s in the UK. Well, my brother and I grew up in that era, albeit in the USA. It sounded worth it.
The Story
Author Geoff Dyer grew up in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire not far from where Princess Anne, King Charles and Queen Camilla each have private estates. But Geoff was born to non-Aristo parents. His parents were thoroughly working class, proudly voted Labour, and did not seek life outside their “class.” Geoff managed at age 11 to change the course of his life. For Americans I will explan that this was through passing a national exam known as the “11 Plus,” which sorted children age 11 into three categories for secondary education: trade school [lowest], Comprehensive of “Secondary Modern” for the majority–like a normal U.S. high school but with middle school tagged on, and Grammar School. This last was for the most academically gifted–or at least those best at taking tests. Grammar Schools prepared them for college [University] though, it was possible to go to some colleges with a normal Comprehensive/Secondary Modern education if you worked very hard. Grammar School, though, was the golden ticket to higher education. Imagine being 11–an age at which I was consumed by the school jax tournament, and having to take an exam that decided your future. Only rarely did a student get to move “up” to a Grammar School after this selection.
Back to the memoir. Geoff was an only child and grew up happy and loved with his parents and surrounded by Aunts, Uncles, and a few cousins. He made friends in the normal way, grew up to be attracted to girls, rock and roll, and reading. He built model airplanes, played soccer, collected cards like our baseball cards and in his teen years drank, went to rock concerts, and tried to have you-know-what with girls. He was normal.
My Thoughts
I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to read a memoir that will never be chosen for Oprah’s book club. Those certainly have their place and definitely have helped with my white, middle class education–opening my eyes to the world around me in new ways. But the USA is a scary place right now. It was wonderful to relax and remember Black and White t.v. having one car for the family, going to relatives one night per week, having parents who made us do the right thing and suffering consequences when we did not [no not getting beaten].
What I Enjoyed Most
I loved reading about his play with the British Action Man–our G.I. Joe. Until I was about 8 there were no girls where we lived for me to play with. Coupled with being sick a lot and moving a lot, I mostly played with my older brother who was completely in tune with the things Geoff liked–except “football” for us was the Bears, the Packers, and the Vikings–I had my own football uniform [click to see the photo of me in it}. 3 generations have now played with my brother’s Bart Starr football from Christmas 1968. We played endlessly with my brother’s G.I. Joe and with Johnny West–the cowboy in the photo on the right above. These two fought wars and even went on aquatic manoevers, for my brother–like Geoff with his Action Man, had all kinds of G.I. Joe gear, all carefully kept in G.I. Joe’s offical footlocker. [I thought I had done a post on these toys but I guess not. Maybe sometime soon]. The Man From Uncle and their toys, too, were part of my brothers world. (Later Geoff brought up Alias Smith & Jones a t.v. show my brother loved).
I so enjoyed this part of the book. Building models–I was thrilled when my brother and our uncle finally finished the large scale Jaguar sports car model and chose the British Racing Green paint! Most a roll of film was devoted to this car as it was posed on our living room carpet.
I also nodded “yes” time an again as he discussed the albums and posters he collected in his Grammar School [high school] years. Jethro Tull’s Aqualung was one Geoff bought that my brother also loved. That was so fun,
While I did not share his taste in reading, and oddly neither did my brother very much, it was also enjoyable to read about how he became a reader. American education being what it was at the time, we read a few books condensed and published in our literature textbook, [click for my text on these] and a few smaller novels and Shakespeare play each year of required English in high school. His serious study for what were called A Level goes to and beyond the level of American AP Classes today. His three top grades in his A levels let him go to Christ Church College, Oxford–like getting into Harvard or Stanford here. I actually cheered in the car when he mentioned his grades! I was glad, too, that his parent’s were “ok” with him going. They had decided in his last years at “the Grammar” that he had to have a summer job to “contribute” to the household. This was unheard of in my world-but not in a families less well off.
This book provided a great trip down memory lane, but perhaps the most meaningful part was yet to come. The story of his mother’s huge, life-affecting [self esteem] birthmark and saucer-sized moles was very poignant. That poor lady.
Finally, Geoff’s own trip down memory lane while clearing out his parents’ home of so many years is one many of my friends have taken and one which my brother and I have partially done now. My mother moved to a Senior’s apartment a few years ago so much of that is now cleared, but believe me–there is still plenty in that apartment to go through at the very end. As Geoff found things from his childhood I could well relate. While my Mom made me take all my “crap” [a word she never uses] in about 1997, a few “treasures” have been uneartherd since. Geoff, an only child, found many things to surprise and delight him as he cleared his parents attic. And, then the shock of how true it is that NO ONE wants your stuff when you die. He didn’t mention Swedish Death Cleaning, but, folks? Let’s do that, please.
My Verdict
4.0
Homework: A Memoir by Geoff Dyer
January 12, 2026
I think you not only have to be British but nearly 70 or even older to enjoy this, as it is a book of memories for those of us that fit into this category, which I do. I’m of a different sex compared to the author but I still enjoyed the talk of Action Men etc., this reminding me of my sons’ toys. Loved reading about Cheltenham too, which I know really well.
9781837261987 Exists but isn’t linked to this book.
9781837261987 Exists but isn’t linked to this book.
August 15, 2025
Rife with cultural touchstones pertaining to British provincial life (which left me out of the loop at times), Homework nonetheless presents a humorous take on a '60s-'70s childhood, a period of great change not only for Dyer, who rises through the grammar school ranks to attend Oxford, but also for England at-large, moving away from post-war frugality to embrace the allure of upward mobility. The parts of the book that followed some of Dyer's early hobbies - building model planes and collecting cards - weren't really my speed, but his anecdotes about school, his friends, football, family trips and strange relatives were written with pointed tact. Dyer questions why he made some of the decisions he did but never delves into self-psychoanalysis. He seems to understand himself enough at the time so as not to place too much judgment. Memoirs in which the present-day older voice pushes through too often to evaluate a younger self loses its sheen. The good ones present life as it was, making it universal despite its singularity.
I wanted to hear more about his transformation from an "ordinary" kid (in the sense that he participated in all the local traditions of others his age) into a bookish scholar. I say this because I remember the feeling of books and reading taking hold of me at an age where I could fully experience their joy and mystery for myself. I was hoping for more on that front, but what I did appreciate was how the book became an homage to his parents. We don't often think about our parents' sacrifices until we're much older, and although it seems like Dyer had a good relationship with them throughout their lives, sometimes parsing the details of our younger selves leads us to appreciate our parents even more. In all, a lovely book. It definitely made me yearn for a time before rampant technology.
I wanted to hear more about his transformation from an "ordinary" kid (in the sense that he participated in all the local traditions of others his age) into a bookish scholar. I say this because I remember the feeling of books and reading taking hold of me at an age where I could fully experience their joy and mystery for myself. I was hoping for more on that front, but what I did appreciate was how the book became an homage to his parents. We don't often think about our parents' sacrifices until we're much older, and although it seems like Dyer had a good relationship with them throughout their lives, sometimes parsing the details of our younger selves leads us to appreciate our parents even more. In all, a lovely book. It definitely made me yearn for a time before rampant technology.
September 24, 2025
Sadly not my favorite Geoff Dyer. Bit of a slog and thought about giving it up a few times. But I also giggled aloud a few times too. And of course I had to note some other books referenced I’d like to read now but not as many as usual.
January 16, 2025
Homework’ is a beautifully written memoir of the author’s experiences of growing up in the sixties and seventies. The ‘shiver of silent excitement’ that Geoff Dyer experienced as a book loving teenager was felt by me on the many occasions when his recollections mirrored my own childhood remembrances. I laughed aloud at some of his anecdotes, but was particularly moved by his descriptions of his parents and his retrospective appreciation of the very qualities that had brought him into conflict with them as an adolescent.
‘Homework’ has a ring of authenticity about it and is thoroughly recommended.
‘Homework’ has a ring of authenticity about it and is thoroughly recommended.
June 20, 2025
I'm not sure giving a star rating to such a personal work is justified, but because it is expected you do it anyway.
Homework is a memory of childhood and growing up that readily accepts that it is not an accurate historical account but one of isolated memories, clouded misremembrances and, occassionally, fiction. Because of that, written with the mirror of hindsight, it is truer and more heartfelt than an album of photographs ever could be.
It is an account of the distancing we all go through from our parents, and that in the end the things that bind us together are - or can be - even stronger.
A truly beautiful book.
Homework is a memory of childhood and growing up that readily accepts that it is not an accurate historical account but one of isolated memories, clouded misremembrances and, occassionally, fiction. Because of that, written with the mirror of hindsight, it is truer and more heartfelt than an album of photographs ever could be.
It is an account of the distancing we all go through from our parents, and that in the end the things that bind us together are - or can be - even stronger.
A truly beautiful book.
September 28, 2025
The beginning was enjoyable. I'm interested in life in England in the sixties and seventies and thought I was in for a treat.
After a while, though, it felt indulgent. The paragraphs are long. The level of detail is supposed to be part of its humorous appeal but it gets annoying after a while.
I stopped caring after a while. I just wanted to get through it. The end was quite good but that's not enough to redeem how hard this was to get through.
When a writer seems so sure he is funny, it's difficult if his sense of humour doesn't work for you.
After a while, though, it felt indulgent. The paragraphs are long. The level of detail is supposed to be part of its humorous appeal but it gets annoying after a while.
I stopped caring after a while. I just wanted to get through it. The end was quite good but that's not enough to redeem how hard this was to get through.
When a writer seems so sure he is funny, it's difficult if his sense of humour doesn't work for you.
June 20, 2025
This is the first book by Dyer that I have read and either this book is not a good place to start with him, or he might not be an author of interest for me. The memoir shows that he has a remarkable memory for models, classic rock albums and other seemingly minor topics. I wanted to finish it so I trudged through.
September 2, 2025
I loved the first third, Dyer's childhood memories and stories of card collecting and favorite toys. Very relatable and so cleverly told! The rest seemed much more rote, a recitation of events rather than a fond recollection. I'll try additional Dyer titles, in hopes of capturing more of his dry humor.
July 28, 2025
Warm and funny yet completely unsentimental.
October 19, 2025
It works best when the nostalgia-factor is on full blast, but I find it almost a stream of consciousness that seems unrelenting at times...and I'm not a huge fan of the occasional interjections from the modern-day. There's a hit of pretentiousness to it, whether or not the author actually meant for it to feel that way.
Read
July 16, 2025DNF snore town
June 19, 2025
2.5 this memoir is poorly paced and boggy with irrelevant detail, but there are some individual episodes so rich and compelling i sort of forgot about that
January 2, 2026
A very detailed memoir about growing up in England during the 1960's and 70's. I enjoyed it very much. 4.5 stars.
July 13, 2025
I anticipated this book resonating with me more than it actually did.
Dyer and I were both born in the same year,lived under a 150 miles apart,had some similarities in terms of upbringing,education etc, a love of reading
I found some redemption from feeling guilty about the crashing dullness of some parts of the book ( interminable passages on relatives,the tweeness of how they were described “ Auntie Twins”.. for example) in the books final 75 pages or so particularly his moving description of his parents physical decline and death
I also enjoyed the excavation of experiences which are common to many British children born in the late fifties and whose childhood was spent outdoors, in parks,on muddy fields,the excitement of even a short bus journey ,how the relationship between the child one’s parents is a mix of deep love and with the onset of adolescence alienation and frustration.
Regrettably I found my attention drifting all too often in the course of its reading,really of how much interest to the average reader is a disagreement or a fight between two small boys or adolescents?
I had hoped for a bit more poetry in the writing,though the book does come alive once Dyer discovers Books,music and how Shakespeare’s works had been inspirational ( alas never for me though)
2.5
Dyer and I were both born in the same year,lived under a 150 miles apart,had some similarities in terms of upbringing,education etc, a love of reading
I found some redemption from feeling guilty about the crashing dullness of some parts of the book ( interminable passages on relatives,the tweeness of how they were described “ Auntie Twins”.. for example) in the books final 75 pages or so particularly his moving description of his parents physical decline and death
I also enjoyed the excavation of experiences which are common to many British children born in the late fifties and whose childhood was spent outdoors, in parks,on muddy fields,the excitement of even a short bus journey ,how the relationship between the child one’s parents is a mix of deep love and with the onset of adolescence alienation and frustration.
Regrettably I found my attention drifting all too often in the course of its reading,really of how much interest to the average reader is a disagreement or a fight between two small boys or adolescents?
I had hoped for a bit more poetry in the writing,though the book does come alive once Dyer discovers Books,music and how Shakespeare’s works had been inspirational ( alas never for me though)
2.5
September 19, 2025
A memoir of growing up in a working class family in Cheltenham then going to Oxford. I struggled to finish it; although he’s only a few years younger than me but that was enough to make it slightly unrelatable, largely because he obsessed about football, mid 70s bands, collecting cards out of tea packets, getting off with girls and petty crime and vandalism. The last chapters were detailed accounts of his parents dying which changed the tone completely. He missed out the middle, about adjusting to Oxford and becoming a writer.
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