‘An amazing story, and truly inspiring. The kind of book everyone will enjoy. IT’S EVEN BETTER THAN YOU’VE HEARD.’ – Bill Gates
Selected as a book of the year by AMAZON, THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, NEW YORK TIMES, ECONOMIST,NEW STATESMAN, VOGUE, IRISH TIMES, IRISH EXAMINER and RED MAGAZINE THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLER ________________________
Tara Westover and her family grew up preparing for the End of Days but, according to the government, she didn’t exist. She hadn’t been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she’d never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn’t believe in hospitals.
As she grew older, her father became more radical and her brother more violent. At sixteen, Tara knew she had to leave home. In doing so she discovered both the transformative power of education, and the price she had to pay for it. ________________________
· From one of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people of 2019 · Shortlisted for the 2018 BAMB Readers' Awards · Recommended as a summer read by Barack Obama, Antony Beevor, India Knight, Blake Morrison and Nina Stibbe
Review
"A memoir to stand alongside classics by the likes of Jeanette Winterson and Lorna Sage . . . a compelling and ultimately joyous account of self-determination" (Sunday Times)
"[A] superb memoir… Westover’s journey from a remote corner of the American west to one of the world’s grandest seats of learning is extraordinary . . . Her story, of fighting to be herself, is as old as the hills she came from, but Westover gives us such a fresh, absorbing take that it deserves to bring her own private Idaho into the bestseller lists, book groups and, eventually, cinemas." (The Times)
"Brilliantly recounts her journey towards knowledge and enlightenment" (Blake Morrison Guardian)
"An amazing story, and truly inspiring. The kind of book everyone will enjoy. IT’S EVEN BETTER THAN YOU’VE HEARD." (Bill Gates)
"Her story is remarkable, as each extreme anecdote described in tidy prose attests. That someone who grew up in her circumstances could achieve as much as she has is astonishing . . . The central tension she wrestles with throughout her book is how to be true to herself without alienating her family. Her upbringing was extraordinary, but that struggle is not." (The Economist)
"This memoir [is] one of the wisest accounts of family love and betrayal that I’ve read" (Mail on Sunday)
"[An] astonishing autobiography" (Antony Beevor)
"Heartbreaking in its honesty...[an] intelligent and powerful memoir" (Literary Review)
"An astonishing and uplifting story about the transformative power of education" (Mail on Sunday, 2018 Cultural Highlights)
About the Author
Tara Westover was born in rural Idaho. She studied history at Brigham Young University and upon graduation was awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She received an MPhil in intellectual history from Trinity College, Cambridge in 2009, and a PhD in the same subject in 2014.