We had so much fun at our last Wool & Grace book group – we can’t wait for the next one. This time, we turned to long-time customer and book lover, Michele, to make a recommendation. Her choice is Educated, a memoir by Tara Westover. I’m a few chapters into the book already. Since I haven’t read the entire book, I can’t come away with a central theme or message that has stuck with me. The value of education is obviously key. I can tell you that this story reminds me of The Glass Castle, a wonderful book that continues to resonate with me over ten years after reading it.
Educated follows Tara throughout her upbringing among an isolated, survivalist family in rural Idaho. One function of her fathers’ beliefs is that she doesn’t go to school until she’s 17 years old. I’m eager to learn about how education, books and learning factor into her experience.
I asked Michele to weigh in and share with us why this book is so meaningful to her. She replied, asking me to make her thoughts eloquent. I think she did a beautiful job herself. This is what she shared with me:
“I loved so many things about this book. It was heart-wrenching but also, at least for me, impossible to stop listening to. It’s a wonderful testament to how you can find yourself through books and the power of education to open eyes and change lives. It’s also about family relationships and loving even those who have seriously failed you. Knocking down roadblocks that our traditional life puts up to dissuade you from moving forward and outgrowing your current circumstances and to be thankful for the people that come into your life on your journey who inspire, encourage, support and believe in you. It’s about tenacity and being patient with yourself and having a belief that you can learn something.”
Educated has already earned tons of accolades and attention, and Michele’s take makes it easy to see why. Obviously, this book has nothing to do with knitting – but I wonder if we can find some way to relate it to our knitting (just for fun)!?
We hope you will join us for our next book group! We’ll likely meet up on a future Monday evening (7pm?) in January. We’ll leave the date open for now, and pick one based on availability of all of our awesome participants!
If you’re interested, please email us at info@woolandgrace.com and we’ll add you to our next book group list!
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