A nostalgic compendium of essential knowledge that can help you show the world that you’re smarter than a ten-year-old after all! Have you ever stared blankly at your kids when they’ve asked why the sky is blue? Or clumsily changed the subject when they’ve wanted to know why the wind blows? If you’re done with school, it’s likely you’re also done knowing the difference between an isosceles and equilateral triangle, and you probably leave participles dangling all over the place. Well, not anymore! Thanks to professional know-it-alls Foley and Coates, you can now gain back your self-respect and actually show those kids a thing or two as you tell it to them straight (and not make it up from fragments of facts you kind of remember). Packed with all the basic facts that have managed to free-fall from our heads over the years, Homework for Grown-ups is the ultimate grammar school refresher course in book form. In fact, there’s even a quiz at the end of each chapter to ensure you’ve been paying attention! Written in the light, engaging style of a favorite teacher and featuring lessons in English, math, history, science, geography, art, and even home economics and recess, this fun and handy guide will help you stop hemming and hawing and start speaking with a lot more authority—and a little less shame. E. FOLEY and B. COATES are editors at Vintage who both live in London.

Ever wish you'd paid more attention in math class? From third grade to senior year of high school, it went in one ear and out the other, didn't it? But now you're staring at the new washer and dryer, trying to figure out the percentage of sales tax on the purchase price. You multiply something by something, right? Or you're scratching your head, wondering how to compute the odds that your football team will take next Sunday's game. You're pretty sure that involved ratios. The problem is, you can't quite remember. Here you get an adult refresher and real-life context—with examples ranging from how to figure out how many shingles it takes to re-roof the garage to the formula for resizing Mom's tomato sauce recipe for your entire family. Forget higher calculus—you just need an open mind. And with this practical guide, math can stop being scary and start being useful.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person." The woman is Rebecca Davitch, a fifty-three-year-old grandmother. "You’ll want to turn back to the first chapter the moment you finish the last.” —PEOPLE On the surface, Beck, as she is known to the Davitch clan, is outgoing, joyous, a natural celebrator. Giving parties is, after all, her vocation—something she married into after Joe Davitch spotted her at an engagement party in his family’s crumbling nineteenth-century Baltimore row house, where giving parties was his family business. What caught Joe's fancy was that she seemed to be having such a wonderful time. Soon this large-spirited divorcé with three little girls swept Beck into his orbit, and before she knew it she was embracing his extended family—plus a child of their own—and hosting endless parties in the ornate, high-ceilinged rooms of The Open Arms. Now, some thirty years later, after presiding over a disastrous family party, Rebecca is caught un-awares by the question of who she really is. Is she an impostor in her own life? Is it indeed her own life? How she answers—how she tries to recover her girlhood self, that dignified grownup she had once been—is the story told in this beguiling, funny, and deeply moving novel.

A picture book reminding us that everyone is human and makes mistakes . . . even grown-ups: “Hilarious.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Whether it’s forgetting to do chores, running late, or burping, no adult would ever behave so poorly—at least, that’s what you might think. By the end of this outrageous, laugh-out-loud picture book, you’ll know better . . . From the duo behind Junior Library Guild selection I Didn’t Do My Homework Because and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School, this relatable and rollicking tale will have kids (and the adults who read with them) in stitches—and remind them that it’s okay not to be perfect all the time . . . and that manners exist for a reason. “Illustrated with irony-laden wit . . . Delightfully droll text.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A fun, simple, and goofy read for both adults and kids.” —School Library Journal “Comically elegant, jewel-toned vignettes by Chaud, which detail an entire page of adult klutzes, a cheating chess player, and an amusing four-panel sequence of a father staring at his phone from breakfast to bedtime, hit the mark every time.” —Publishers Weekly

The Australian edition of this bestselling classic. Don't know your isosceles from your equilateral? Forgotten who wrote Waltzing Matilda? Do you know when you've left a participle hanging? And are you left slack-jawed when your children ask you what 'quid pro quo' means? Bewildered already? Fret no longer. Homework for Grown-ups Australian Edition is a brilliantly informative and entertaining book of old-school knowledge for adults. It swots up on mathematics (covering algebra, Pythagoras' theorem, prime numbers and the Fibonacci sequence), English grammar and literature (do you know how to read a poem?), chemistry and the sciences (including the Big Bang theory), geography (can you name the planets in order?), history (how to remember the Eureka Stockade, plus Federation and the first Prime Minister), art, Latin, modern languages, PE, home economics, and much more. Homework for Grown-ups Australian Edition is packed with essential facts, figures and theories, along with fun but challenging test papers to keep you on your toes and reignite those dormant brain-cells. A practical and wonderfully nostalgic revision guide for adults, Homework for Grown-ups Australian Edition will entertain while exercising the mind u and might even equip parents to handle their child's homework without humiliation.

If you paid attention to Homework for Grown-ups you should hopefully now have a grasp of the basics: know your chiasmus from your zeugma, your obliques from your acutes, and your Anne of Cleves from your Anne Boleyn. Now, sit up straight, and get your jotters and pencils out, because E Foley and B Coates are back to steer you through some of the more complicated elements of the curriculum and beyond. Advanced Homework for Grown-ups will revisit and refresh the core subjects of Maths, English, Science, Geography, History and Classics in a little more depth. This time, amongst other topics, they tackle logarithms, unlock the secrets of semantics, and explore the Agrarian Revolution, with a mix of really useful information and entertainingly esoteric material. In addititon, new subjects enter the timetable: Music, Modern Languages, Economics, Politics, Philosophy and Psychology, as well as Design and Drama. Packed with fun practical excercises and, of course, examination papers for the competitive, Advanced Homework for Grown-ups will be the perfect gift.

Which literary giant also held the post of Controller of the Custom of Hides, Skins and Wools in the port of London? Which former concubine went on to become the first, and only, empress of China? Which French diplomat gave his name to the notoriously addictive nicotine? How old was George Harrison whent the Beatles split up? Test your wits, compete with your loved ones and check if it's all still there upstairs with these devilishly diverting questions on all the old-school subjects.

'Rather jolly and very helpful’ The Times Need to swot up on your Shakespeare? The ultimate guide to the Bard, perfect for the Shakespeare aficionado and general reader alike. If you’ve always felt a bit embarrassed at your precarious grasp on the plot of Othello, or you haven’t a clue what a petard (as in ‘hoist with his own petard’) actually is, then fear not, because this, at last, is the perfect guide to the Bard. From the authors of the number-one bestselling Homework for Grown-ups, Shakespeare for Grown-ups is the essential book for anyone keen to deepen their knowledge of they plays and sonnets. For parents helping with their children’s homework, casual theatre-goers who want to enhance their enjoyment of the most popular plays and the general reader who feels they should probably know more about Britain’s most splendid scribe, Shakespeare for Grown-ups covers Shakespeare's time; his personal life; his language; his key themes; his less familiar works and characters; his most famous speeches and quotations; phrases and words that have entered general usage, and much more.