Geoff Dyer’s Homework: Family, Class, and Memory

In this episode, Adam Biles speaks with acclaimed author Geoff Dyer live from Shakespeare and Company about his new memoir, Homework. Dyer reflects on growing up in 1960s Cheltenham, navigating family, class, and the formation of self. With characteristic wit and insight, he paints portraits of his quietly disappointed mother and parsimonious father, capturing an era that feels remote yet familiar. The conversation explores the power of memory, the weirdness of grammar schools, the ambient presence of war, and the subtle tyranny of the English class system. Dyer discusses how language, books, and music shaped him—and how the past persists in surprising phrases and daily habits. By turns hilarious and moving, this event reminds us why Dyer remains one of the UK’s most original and generous literary voices.

Buy Homework: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/homework-3

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Geoff Dyer is an award-winning author of four novels and numerous non-fiction books, including Out of Sheer Rage, Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It, Zona and, most recently, See/Saw. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, Dyer lives in Los Angeles, where he is Writer in Residence at the University of Southern California. His books have been translated into twenty-four languages.

Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.

Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w

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