The University of Delaware has selected Tara Westover’s best-selling memoir, Educated, as its 2019 First Year Common Reader. Read by UD’s first year students, the Common Reader selection provides a unique opportunity for students to engage in meaningful conversations with fellow students, and to begin to share in the intellectual life of the entire UD community.

First year students are asked to read the book before arriving on campus. The Common Reader Program organizes speakers, films and other cultural events around the theme of the book throughout the first semester.

Tara Westover is an American historian and writer known for her unique and courageous education journey. She was born to Mormon survivalist parents opposed to public education. Westover never attended school as a young child. She spent her days working in her father’s junkyard or stewing herbs for her mother - until Westover decided to get an education and experience the world outside of her community.

Educated tells the story of Westover who first stepped into a classroom when she was 17 years old. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure that the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older siblings became violent.  When another sibling enrolled himself into college, Tara decided to attempt a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her to Harvard and to Cambridge Universities. This decision led her to question whether she had traveled too far, or if there was still a way home.

Previous common readers have included:

Lab Girl, by Hope Jahren; The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead; When the Emperor Was Divine, by Julie Otsuka; Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson; Thank You for Your Service, by David Finkel; My Beloved World, by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor; Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo; and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.

For more information on the Common Reader, visit the website.