Notes & Links: 'Educated'

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our September 19, 2021, discussion of Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover. If you have read (or even heard about) this book, you will not be surprised that it sparked conversation on a wide variety of topics--from what it means to be educated to what it means to be well, mental health and trauma to survivalism, family bonds to the nature of memory.

Links for further reading, viewing, listening, and reflecting:

• "A Psychologist's Take on Tara Westover's Memoir, Educated" by Goali Saedi Bocci, Ph.D. (Psychology Today)

• Tara Westover's list of recommended reading

• "Memoirist Retraces Her Journey From Survivalist Childhood To Cambridge Ph.D." (Fresh Air with Terry Gross interview)

• "Educated author Tara Westover answers your questions" (PBS NewsHour)

• The story of Pygmalion in Roman mythology (World Folklore)

• "How Pygmalion went from feminist manifesto to chick flick" (About the play by George Bernard Shaw from PRI)

• The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff (A novel about a Mormon family read by the World Affairs Book Discussion Group in 2010.)

• The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

• The Glass Castle (film adaptation)

• The Wonders (Le meraviglie) - Film written and directed by Alice Rohrwacher

• "Isaiah Berlin, part 2: What is 'good' freedom" by Giles Fraser (The Guardian; about Berlin's ideas of positive liberty and negative liberty)

• Tara Westover singing (PBS NewsHour)

• "The Un-instagramable Self," Tara Westover's 2019 commencement address at Northeastern: Transcript; YouTube video (with a hymn from Tara at the end)

• "How and why do Mormons baptize the dead?" (CNN)

• Why genealogy is important to Mormons (from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)

In Bay Area literary news, Litquake has announced the schedule for the October 2021 literary festival. Click here for the schedule and details.

Our October Book

On Sunday, October 17, we will discuss A House Is a Body: Stories by San Francisco-based writer Shruti Swamy.