Shelf Life

Geoff Dyer on Bad Food, Jazz Renegades, and the "Soviet Resignation" of Post-War Britain


Listen Later

Send us a text

Few writers dance across genres with as much wit, irreverence, and intellectual curiosity as Geoff Dyer. From Out of Sheer Rage, about his struggles to write a book on DH Lawrence, to the award-winning jazz meditations of But Beautiful, he's made a career of bending forms to his will. In Homework, his first memoir, Dyer turns that restless mind to his own post-war English childhood and proves that even the most straightforward narrative can't escape his signature style. Homework is quintessential Dyer: wry, digressive and unexpectedly poignant. He reconstructs his working class, childhood—the air fix models, the hand-me-down football kits, his parents quiet sacrifices—with a novelist's eye and a standup's timing.  We also explore some of Dyer's inspirations, including Ernie Pyle's Brave Men, the stark Second World War dispatches that imprinted themselves on his millions of readers, and Ada Collins poem "The News," with its knack for finding unease in the ordinary. 

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Shelf LifeBy Grand Journal

  • 5
  • 5
  • 5
  • 5
  • 5

5

36 ratings


More shows like Shelf Life

View all
This American Life by This American Life

This American Life

91,012 Listeners

The New Yorker Radio Hour by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

The New Yorker Radio Hour

6,763 Listeners

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast by Marc Maron

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast

29,506 Listeners

Otherppl with Brad Listi by Brad Listi

Otherppl with Brad Listi

525 Listeners

Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry by David Naimon, Tin House Books

Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

465 Listeners

The LRB Podcast by The London Review of Books

The LRB Podcast

289 Listeners

In Our Time by BBC Radio 4

In Our Time

5,541 Listeners

Great Lives by BBC Radio 4

Great Lives

517 Listeners

London Review Bookshop Podcast by London Review Bookshop

London Review Bookshop Podcast

128 Listeners

The Shakespeare and Company Interview by Shakespeare and Company

The Shakespeare and Company Interview

92 Listeners

The History of Literature by Jacke Wilson / The Podglomerate

The History of Literature

1,108 Listeners

How To Academy Podcast by How To Academy

How To Academy Podcast

61 Listeners

The Bulwark Podcast by The Bulwark

The Bulwark Podcast

12,303 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

16,042 Listeners

Critics at Large | The New Yorker by The New Yorker

Critics at Large | The New Yorker

632 Listeners