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Tara Westover

Biography

Tara Westover

Tara Westover is an American historian and memoirist. Her first book, EDUCATED, was a finalist for a number of national awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. The New York Times named EDUCATED one of the 10 Best Books of 2018, and the American Booksellers Association voted EDUCATED the Nonfiction Book of the Year. In 2019, Time magazine named Westover one of the 100 Most Influential People. Westover holds a PhD in intellectual history from Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 2019 she was the Rosenthal Writer in Residence at Harvard University. In 2023, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden.

Tara Westover

Books by Tara Westover

Brothers and Sisters
by Tara Westover - Memoir, Nonfiction

Tara Westover grew up at the base of a mountain in Idaho. Then she left the mountain and wrote the story. She wrote about her father’s junkyard and being kept out of school, the family’s preparations for the End of Days, and the confusion she felt when an older brother became violent. Then she published the story. The world believed her, but her parents hired a lawyer. Westover was able to believe herself because two of her brothers believed her. “There is a gift siblings can give to one another,” Westover writes. “It is the gift of a witness.” But the gift didn’t last. The book became a phenomenon, and soon after, her brothers denied events that they had once confirmed, or they confirmed the events but denied their meaning. Westover was believed by millions, but she was not believed by her own family.

Educated: A Memoir
by Tara Westover - Memoir, Nonfiction

Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she had traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated: A Memoir (Audiobook)
written by Tara Westover, read by Julia Whelan - Memoir, Nonfiction

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho and isolated from mainstream society, she lacked any formal education. So she began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.