POD: Book Clubs

Educated

Astonishing self-invention

Tara Westover grew up preparing for the End of Days in rural Idaho with radical survivalist Mormon parents. She didn’t get a birth certificate until she was nine and had no medical records because her father did not believe in doctors. She and her six older siblings worked in her father’s junkyard. As she grew older, her father’s beliefs became more extreme and one of her brothers grew violent.

At 17, she decided to educate herself as a means of escape. Within 10 years she had earned a PhD in intellectual history and political thought from Cambridge but was estranged from her parents and half of her siblings. Now 31 and still living in Cambridge, Educated is her first novel and is about the transformative power of education and the price she had to pay for it.

Part of our ‘Beyond the Book’ Series. View

PODCASTS

How to Fail

(48 mins)

Elizabeth Day talks to Tara Westover about what it’s like to love your family but to be estranged from them, and how the two ideas can co-exist. They also discuss how on earth someone teaches themselves algebra and what it was like to refuse any pain medication despite having a dental abscess. Her failures include flunking tests, finding it difficult to make friends, her failure to believe in her family’s religion even though she wanted to and her failure to make her relationship with her parents work.

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The Book Club Review of Educated

(42 mins)

Kate and Laura sit down to chat about the books read most recently by their book clubs. What did they make of them? Did they spark debate? And whether they loved them or loathed them, they always try to answer the big question: were they great book club books? This memoir made Barack Obama’s summer reading list but what did Kate and Laura think about it? Moving? Credible? Plenty to discuss? Listen and find out.

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VIDEOS

The Economist

(28 mins)

Anne McElvoy for The Economist discusses Mormons, Harry Potter and the future of education with Tara.

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The Un-instagramable Self – Tara Westover’s Northeastern Commencement Speech 2019

(19 mins)

Discover more about the person behind the book as she talks – and sings – through this remarkable Commencement speech. She reminds us of the selves that we don’t post on social media.

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A tour of an off-grid cabin in Bonner County, Idaho

(7 mins)

Tara’s upbringing may appear extreme but her family were by no means exceptional. The American Redoubt movement aims to create a safe haven where like-minded Americans, many of whom refer to themselves as “preppers,” can live off the land, be more self-sufficient and wait out the calamities to come. This video looks at one couple’s off-grid lifestyle in the American Redoubt.

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Tara Westover answers viewers questions

(14 mins)

PBS News Hour-New York Times book club, Tara answers viewers questions about her life.

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ARTICLES

A Psychologist’s Take on Educated

Goali Saedi Bocci in Psychology Today explores the memoir from a psychological view point, as a story that encourages profound reflection in each of us as to how we become who we are once we step outside the shadows of family.

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Tyler Westover’s Amazon review of Educated

“Good message, although some supporting information isn’t entirely accurate” – Tyler W

Read Tyler Westover’s review of his sister’s book. He gives it 5 stars but emphasises that, as with many siblings, ‘we have different memories and different perceptions of the same events’.

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Book Club Questions for Educated

Great questions for your Book Club to use to further discussions and debate about the book. From bookclubchat.com

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Tara Westover Website

Girl, Woman, Other

Dazzling and masterful

This is Britain as you’ve never read it. This is Britain as it has never been told. From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl, Woman, Other follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They’re each looking for something – a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope . . .

Winner of the Booker Prize 2019

‘Beautifully interwoven stories of identity, race, womanhood, and the realities of modern Britain’

Part of our ‘Beyond the Book’ Series. View

The Vanishing Half

Family and identity

From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, Brit Bennett produces a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past, as it shapes decisions, desires and expectations, and explores the multiple reasons why people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

Part of our ‘Beyond the Book’ Series. View

American Dirt

Incredible or insulting

When American Dirt came out, it was an Oprah’s book club pick and became The Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. It was optioned for a film adaptation by Clint Eastwood and was lauded by many as the ‘great immigration novel’. However since then it has received harsh criticism, particularly from many Latinx writers for what they felt was its stereotypical portrait of migrants from Mexico and Central America. The controversy caused Jeanine Cummins to cancel her book tour and all events due to death threats and more.

There’s so much to discuss about this novel, so in addition to reading the book why not enrich your book club meeting by exploring the US/Mexico crisis further with podcasts and videos from the frontlines and discussions about the potential consequences of telling a story that is not your own.

Part of our ‘Beyond the Book’ Series. View

Educated

Astonishing self-invention

PODCASTS

(48 mins)

Kindle Paperwhite

(42 mins)

VIDEOS

(28 mins)

(19 mins)

(7 mins)

HelloFresh meal plan offers

(14 mins)

ARTICLES

XTRA

Tara Westover Website

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