Customer Reviews

Homework for Grown-ups: Everything You Learned at School and Promptly Forgot

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I had anticipated that this book would be a light read, perhaps for the coffee table or bathroom book shelf, but I was quite dismayed at how poorly the author accomplished his stated goal of covering essential information, even in a shortened form. One can be terse while still being informative. However, the topics covered in this book are either laughably simply explained, useless, or many times plain wrong. In all respects, this book appears to be written to encourage an impulse buy while flipping through it in line at Barnes and Noble.

A few comments on each section follow below:
1) English Language and Literature
The coverage of basic grammar is good, although nothing earth-shattering. The impulse buyer may see some things like "commonly misspelled words" and get excited, but the list is not very long. The worst part was the review of English Literature, if one could call it a review. About a dozen classics summarized with vapid summaries that do not tell you anything about the book. For example, Pride and Prejudice is described thusly:
"Sassy woman with nightmare family meets snobby rich boy. After various intrigues everyone ends up married."
Some explanation as to the time period, style, thematic elements, or "why is this a classic" would be good in a book called "Homework for Grownups". Alas, this brief sentence is as good as it gets.

2) Mathematics
Math was extremely basic, and was more of an elementary school curriculum than anything else. As an engineer, I will forgive the simplicity as I may not be objective. However, I would have expected some more detail, especially pertaining to more advanced numbers you see daily. If I were to write this section, I would have put far more probability and statistics, and far less geometry (which seemed written just to fill space).

3) Home Economics
Conversion tables are handy, but available on the internet. There is a smattering of random info like how to tie a tie, but nothing cohesive. This chapter just seemed random.

4) History
A few more sentences on the founding fathers of this country would have elucidated just why Adams and Jefferson were rivals. Hamilton likely had the longest lasting effect on this country, and he is not even mentioned. On the Civil War, the book wrongly states slavery was illegal in the entire North, when it was not only legal in MD and DE before 1860, but still legal in 1865 as well. While I do not expect Southern apologetics, I would appreciate a more nuanced explanation than "it was about slavery". World politics of the 20th century get equally light treatment, and many paragraphs are misleading.

5) Science
How can you explain Einstein and relativity without a few stick drawings of a train and a guy throwing a ball? I thought the explanation was very weak. I have read some tremendous books for beginners on Cosmology, the Big Bang, and modern physics where these concepts are explained quite well (see Simon Singh). This book insultingly says that these concepts are too tough to explain.

6) Religious Education
After specifically saying that Jewish and Christian tradition divide up the 10 Commandments differently, the book proceeds to print the Christian 10 commandments and label them as the Jewish version. Such a basic mistake makes it seem like the entire book might have been pasted from Wikipedia.

8) Classics and 9) Art
Very light, not much to comment on here. Once again, there are many other great beginner books.

My summary is 2 stars. I would not recommend you purchase this book. There are plenty of other books that cover basic knowledge in each of these subjects that are far superior. I don't see a place for this book in most homes.

It really is amazing how much of your schooling you forget as an adult! This book does a nice job of patching over those holes in our memories. I even managed to learn some brand new things. The book is laid out as a series of lessons, which you can do in any order. At the end of each lesson, there is a quiz. I admit, being an adult, I exercised my option to cheat liberally on the quizzes, or skipped them altogether. :-)

I did find that there was a lot of detail lacking, which is mostly forgivable given the brevity of the book. I looked at it as a way to whet your appetite to learn (or relearn) more, rather than a definitive guide on the subjects. However, in more than one place, the book used unfamiliar terms or concepts without providing any explanation or background. Also, there was certainly some filler and throw-away material that could've been replaced with more details on the subjects covered (e.g. the one-sentence summary of great works of literature, and the entire home economics section). Finally, the book was very Western in its focus, especially the religion section which covered only Christianity and a smattering of Judaism, and the history section, which is largely American history. It would've been nice if the authors recognized that the world is a bigger place and tried to expand our horizons.

I wound up giving the book 4 stars despite the flaws because I did have fun with it. I think if you approach this book in the right frame of mind, it is an enjoyable and easy way to review your education.

Alright, another random knowledge manual. Homework for Grown-ups provides an entertaining encore to some of the driest of high-school subjects, and is written in a light-hearted, wry fashion that is quite enjoyable to follow. Part of the reason I give it four stars is for its personableness, and it really does a good job covering many, but certainly not all, of the subjects kids wonder about and stump those of us past the drama-storm of high school by asking about.

Partially due to its light-heartedness, however, the book is sometimes breezy with its subjects, leaving the reader incompletely informed. While "homework" takes a primary role in the book's title, it is sometimes just a bit obvious to those of us well-versed in certain subjects that a bit more research might be in order for the authors themselves. I would not take that criticism too far, though. This book is a fun gloss of a wide variety of useful subjects, and if nothing else might spur the reader to a deeper study of some of its well-presented topics.

The idea for the book is a good one, as I have already experienced the annoyance of forgetting parts of my schooling. I think, for the vastness of what the authors are covering in the relatively short span, they did an excellent job. Some reviewers have complained about a lack of discussion of religions other than Christianity or Judaism, but in my copy there were sections on Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Islam. Granted, the sections on them are about 1/2 to 2/3 the length of the Christian and Judaism sections, but there is enough to give readers a brush-up on major world religions. The synopsis of the various classic books truly are short, but again, this is meant to be a refresher for adults who have most likely read these books, not a study guide for teenagers trying to get by on an exam.

Could the authors have added more? Sure. But I think if you take the book for what it is, it's a great refresher crash-course for adults, written in just the right tone - a little playful at times, but not so much as to distract from the subject at hand or use up much space in this very concise book. The scope of this book is far-reaching, and although not exhaustive in any of the subjects, I think it is "long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep it interesting", to quote one of my high school teachers.

"Homework for Grownups" is a fun book that can be read over the course of an evening or which can be enjoyed in small doses. It is a review of things most people probably learned during their time in K-12. It is broken down into nine subjects including Recess and Home Ec and has a small quiz at the end of each chapter. Definitely an Open Book Test!

The English Lit section was pretty good with a review of Poetry Terms and forms. It had a synopsis of Classical Novels and Shakespeare Plays but I did have a few questions about their selections and what was omitted. There was an English grammar section that contained information more easily remembered using school house rock.

The math Section has a review of simple mathematics. It explained some geometric terms and showed how to use Pi. There were a few examples of Algebra and Trig also.

Home Ec and Recess were fun. There were examples on how to tie a tie and how to iron a shirt. Also the Rules for Hop Scotch, Freeze Tag and Other School Yard Games.

I found the History section a little sparse. I also questioned some of their selections (the battle of Chattanooga more important than Vicksburg which was omitted; Pearl Harbor more important than Stalingrad or Midway?).

The Religion section was very interesting. I learned many things about Hindus and Sikhs that I never knew.

Science explained light-years, Geometry, and how atoms operate.
The Art section was very sparse. There were hardly any examples at all. You can't expect much in a paperback I suppose. I wish they had a web based companion.

Over all it is a nice little book. I took the tests in the back and found out I had indeed forgotten a lot.

Although this book is interesting and written in an approachable enough way to read cover to cover, it is especially useful to use as a reference. I truly believe every bookshelf in America ought to have a copy of this book (and that copy should be dog-eared and marked from being consulted regularly!). It's like a Webster's dictionary for every subject from school. Can't remember whether 11 is a prime number or a square number? There's a chart in this book. Your nephew asks you how birds fly, and you know "magic" isn't technically the right answer, but you don't know what to tell him? Fear not, the answer can be found in the "Science: Biology" chapter.

Nearest and dearest to my heart, the Grammar chapter comes right at the beginning of the book. Although text messaging and instant messaging is a grammatical wild west bound to destroy civilization as we know it, there is still a need to heed the rules of the road when it comes to grammar. I understand most people did not find the sentence-diagramming unit in eighth grade English class as mentally stimulating as between class extracurricular activity, and now they've grown up and are utterly intimidated by the thought of writing a letter or email (beyond casual correspondence in which you know your friends won't call you out for misused apostrophes or the chronic your/you're; they're/their/there conundrums). That intimidation is completely unneeded, and with the grammar chapter in this book, they can re-learn the rules of intelligent writing.

If you were the kid who was the grammar nerd, you might find that you don't learn much from it. Excellent! The cool thing about this book is that at the end of each chapter, there's a quiz. Take the quiz, get 100%, and feel fab about yourself because you remembered those grammar lessons from years ago. Then flip to a section of the book that might not have been your strong suit. For me, that meant heading straight to the "Mathematics" chapter to brush up on prime numbers and the Pythagorean Theorem. The quiz didn't inspire the synapse collapse Algebra I did, back in the day, but it was definitely a challenge!

All work and no play makes even the most zealous "pale kid" dreadfully dull, so there's a brief chapter on "Recess" included in the book. You'll find how to fold the perfect paper airplane as well as the rules to such playground favorites as Hopscotch, Paper-Rock-Scissors, Freeze Tag, and Four-Square, just to name a few. If you think this is an unnecessary inclusion, just watch the argument that can ensue between two eight-year-olds when one thinks the other cheated at one of these games. Now there's a guideline, in black and white, to reference in order to settle playground disputes. (Some kids are tenacious arguers, even when they're wrong. I'm just sayin'.)

So this is definitely recommended, both as a book to read cover-to-cover and feel smarter, and to get a quick answer about various topics in a pinch. I'd buy one for the house and one for the car. You never know when some little weisenheimer (or big weisenheimer) is going to spark a lively discussion about the Boston Tea Party or Treaty of Versaille, or ask the age-old question: "Why is the sky blue?"

This book contains some educational gems. I was glad to see American history included in the book. I wondered about that because the authors are British.

I did find many of the tidbits of information in the book to be overly simplistic. Certain sections of the book weren't as comprehensive in scope as I'd like them to be. In addition, the three R's are fundamental to grade school, but I found little to nothing on the topic of writing as far as forming essays and things. The first chapter presented English language and literature, the second chapter covered math, but there was no chapter dedicated to the 2nd R of writing. Finally, I wasn't impressed with the amount of material in the book that I hadn't forgotten because it was just too basic to be forgotten.

I love the idea behind this book, but the execution here is a little rough in my opinion. I think one reason why so many of us don't remember this stuff in the first place is because of how we learned it--cramming for multiple choice tests, for instance, rather than absorbing details in an interesting context. Well, this book mostly consists of guess what? Cramming for multiple choice tests. The only bonus is the occassionally funny tongue-in-cheek remarks. There are also, as others have noted, some factual errors in the text, which I hope will be fixed by the time the final version goes to press. Overall not bad, but not great either.

I thought I would get this book to try and relearn my "homework" before my child realizes you forget most of what you learn in school.

Firstly, the book is nicely divided into sections:
- English Language and Literature
- Mathematics
- Home Economics
- History
- Science
- Religious Education
- Geography
- Classics
- Art
With so much information packed into 351 pages it's best to grapple small sections rather than expect to read through all of the pages overnight. Besides, some of it you may actually want to forget - chemistry, for example :)

One of the really nice things about this book is the quizzes at the end of each section; I really enjoyed this! I suspect that leaving this book on a coffee table for guest to peruse will spark interesting conversations. But let's face it; any author attempting to pack all of your forgotten education into a single book is really going to come up with a condensed version. But I much prefer a 351 page book over the thousand page book this could have been.

Homework for Grown-ups has an interesting premise. Rather than being simply a book of trivia or random, interesting facts, authors Foley and Coates attempt to help us out with the amnesia of old age and fill in those embarrassing gaps in knowledge that have occurred since graduating from school. I like the premise and I am usually a fan of these kinds of books. However, the book never quite gelled for me. The authors lack a certain amount of vision, as it isn't clear if they quite knew what kind of book they were shooting for: was it edutainment or education, cultural controversy or cultural literacy, filling the gaps of knowledge from high school or college? The result is a hodgepodge of information from anywhere from 5th grade to senior year in college. The book also has a thrown together quality. Despite the pristine typography, the information should have been more carefully organized and edited. I guess my major complaint is that the book, at least for me, was not a fun book to read. It was more of a chore.

Still the idea of the book is quite interesting. It reminds me of that Father Guido Sarducci (Don Novello) skit from Saturday Night Live in the late 1970s--'Five Minute University.' Instead of going to college, Sarducci would teach you only what the average college student remembered five years after graduation. Because we forget all but the highlights after five years have elapsed, all essential knowledge remembered from your college years could be taught in the space of five minutes. So economics boils down to "supply and demand" and all you need to learn in Spanish is 'como esta usted' because that's all anyone really remembers. An over exaggeration, perhaps, but clearly we forget quite a lot once we are done with school.

Before I start poking holes in what was done here, I want to make sure that you know that the book does have redeeming qualities. There is a lot of interesting information herein and the authors do have a very pleasant writing style. Unfortunately, there are a lot of fundamental problems with the book as it stands. This may reflect that the book I have is an uncorrected proof. However, it is important to note that it was also previously released in the UK and I don't know if there will be many changes in content before it is formally released.

There are, of course, at least two ways to go with this kind of book. You could take the gravely serious, cultural-literacy, E.D Hirsch/Allan Bloom, closing-of-the-American-mind approach. Or you could try the more lighthearted Sarducci approach. Either way, I suppose, would be acceptable. The problem with Homework for Grown-ups is that it can't seem to figure out which way it wants to go. The authors do come up with a few witty, section titles and only give a nod towards the irreverent, albeit in a more quiet, British, tut-tut way. But overwhelmingly they gravitate towards the more serious approach. The result is a book that is never laugh-out-loud funny and is jam-packed with somewhat random facts that are often presented in a particularly dry way.

They start off with the basic rules of grammar, which comes off as particularly flat and lifeless. They loosen up a bit when they summarize selected great books, which was nearly tongue and cheek. It took over 250 pages until you get to the chapter on classics where they finally unbutton the top button, but still never manage to loosen the tie quite so much. But the problem here is that grammar CAN be entertaining. If you don't believe me try Lynne Truss' 'Eat, Shoots, and Leaves.' (Eats, Shoots & Leaves Illustrated Edition) And if you think you can't laugh out loud at the classics and actually learn something at the same time, try Will Cuppy's 'The Decline and Fall of Practically Everyone.' (The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (Nonpareil Books)) History, too, can be told in an irreverent but highly educational way. Kenneth Davis has written some excellent and entertaining overviews of history in his 'Don't Know Much About History' series. (For example,Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (Don't Know Much About...) ) There are others of course, but these books hit the ball out of the park, each in it's own ways. Ways that seem to elude Foley and Coates.

As to figuring out the depth of information, it isn't really clear what they were shooting for. In the mathematics section they actually go over long multiplication. (Sadly, if you don't already know how to do long multiplication, you certainly won't be able to figure out how to do this after reading the section.) At the same time, they go over poetic meter in a little too much depth. Yes, I knew what an iamb and an anapest was before reading the book, but I had never heard of a molossus or amphimacer. This may be a failing of American public education as compared to the British system that Foley and Coates hail from, but this seems to be the kind of specialized information that you might miss in high school or even college. There are other examples of this kind of variety of information. It's not clear whether the book is meant to prepare you for 'Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?' or an entrance exam for a masters program.

Editing is spotty at times. Some of the more obvious examples of this occur in the history section. Not only do we jump from early man to the Magna Carta with nothing in between, but the section is presented as quite a jumble of information that is not really organized by time period. There is an excellent time line throughout the section, but it never matches up with the content of a specific page.

At times, descriptions are so terse as to be completely inaccurate. The most egregious of these would be the description of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Apparently, since the establishment of the State of Israel, "...there have been repeated Arab-Israeli wars and the borders of Israel have grown, displacing and making refugees of many Palestinians." The last Israelis evacuated the Sinai peninsula in 1982, effectively shrinking Israel's sphere of influence by 75%. They have also 'disengaged' from parts of the West Bank and Gaza, further decreasing the size of greater Israel. My guess would be that the authors were trying to point to illegal settlements as the cause of the conflict, but the conflict is far more complex than that and their shorthand made short shrift of the subject.

There are examples of other kinds of editing errors that pop up. They list a table of Roman numerals and their Arabic number equivalents, but never tell you how to arrange Roman numerals to get desired numerical equivalents. In their list of Presidents of the United States we have a listing for 'Jimmy Carter,' who should be listed as James Earl Carter, III. But if James is Jimmy, why is Bill Clinton, 'William J. Clinton'? The diagrams don't always follow the flow of the mnemonics. For example, they give a good mnemonic for the columns of classic architecture, but the figure displaying the columns is printed in a different order. Then there's the color wheel in the art section... unfortunately it makes absolutely no visual sense when printed in black and white--let's hope this is a quirk of the pre-release galleys and gets colorized when the book gets released.

In the section on religion, I was surprised that they never mentioned the formation of the Church of England, given that the first edition of the book was printed in the UK. Moreover, they purport to present the Ten Commandments as broken up in the 'Jewish tradition.' The breakdown they actually presented is in the Anglican/Protestant tradition. What they call the 'Christian tradition' is really the tradition of the Catholic Church and most Lutherans. This is a minor point, I suppose, but something so fundamental as the Ten Commandments should be presented accurately.

They give excellent introductions to their chapters, but these introductions can be frustrating as well. Too many times to count, they introduce information that 'you should know' but never present that in the subsequent chapter. For example, an Egyptian frit is a blue color considered to be the first synthetic pigment. Intaglio is a method of printing where the image is etched on to a metal plate whereas lithography is a process where oil, fat, or gum spread on the printing plate to divide the smooth surface into areas that accept or reject ink. Not high concepts, but all are found in the introduction to the Art chapter. Sadly, none are found in the content of that chapter. In the science chapter we are told that the mysteries of sound traveling faster in water than in air and why your skin becomes wrinkly in water will be revealed. Sadly, neither of the phenomena are commented on in that chapter. Most of the chapter introductions are like this.

And as if this weren't enough, there are homework questions at the end of each chapter. I know it's a pet peeve of mine, but if the information is not in the chapter I don't feel I should be quizzed on it. Okay, none of this counts for squat in the real world, but I still find it frustrating. Moreover, the answers are found at the very back of the book. Hey. This is not a real text book, so why not make the answers more accessible?

Finally, the book is seriously lacking an index. This is a compendium of information and it would have been great to have a way to look up specific information without paging endlessly through the book's 351 pages.

So I guess my major point is that I don't want to read a book that makes me cringe and well up with tears, remembering the dark, red circles and 'X's Miss Fliberdegibit graffitized on my grammar sheet, all under a notation at the top of the page that read, 'See Me.' If this is a serious book, it needs to seriously cover the information in a compelling way. If it's meant to be read on a lark, the material needs to be presented in a more lighthearted, humorous, and engaging fashion.

So, if you are earnestly interested in what you missed in high school or college you can seek out the never ending 'cultural literacy' kinds of books that are out there. If you are interested in obscure facts you can try those books that highlight those. If you are interested in quick topics of interest, try something like the Uncle John's bathroom reader series.(For example, Uncle John's Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader)) I do think that the authors are really onto something with their concept. I think this book was, perhaps, thrown together a little too fast and without a fully fleshed out idea of what the final outcome would be.

(In the meantime, I suppose I should be hitting the grammar section again. After rereading this review, it is apparent that I am sorely in need of a refresher...)