Paperback

Born in 1958, the only child of a dinner lady and a sheet-metal worker, Geoff Dyer grew up in a world shaped by the Second World War. It was a time of Airfix models and wargames, conkers and frugality: having splurged on a mono record player, Geoff’s dad discovers it’s a portal to endless expenditure and funding for records is abruptly withdrawn. But far from being a story of hardship overcome, Homework is a celebration of opportunities afforded to Dyer’s generation.

A grammar-school education leads to books, prog rock (on a new stereo), girls, beer and, eventually, a place at Oxford. In Homework, Dyer returns to his early life and asks what it means to live through an era of complex social transformation.