Homework for Grown-ups: Everything You Learnt at School... and Promptly Forgot
Elizabeth Foley , Beth Coates
William Leith16 August 2012
Homework for Grown-Ups
By E Foley and B Coates
(Vintage, £8.99)
How much can you remember from school? Not much, probably. But, say the authors of this book, which is great fun, “it’s still all there”. And here it is, in one volume — the glory of an entire school education, boiled down to one volume. It’s a brilliant piece of editing. Guides to Dickens, Austen and Shakespeare. Descriptions of parts of speech — including the gerund. Stuff about atoms. More physics. The definitions of the types of averages — mean, medium and mode. Oxbow lakes. Kings and Queens of England, from the House of Wessex to the House of Windsor. I’m just scratching the surface here.
