Barack Obama’s Favorite Book of the Summer Is Mine, Too
Over the weekend, former President Barack Obama revealed the books he’d read over the summer. His diverse reading list caught my eye, because the first book mentioned is one I recently completed, and one that just might be my favorite book of summer.
Obama and I both read Tara Westover’s memoir “Educated,” and he summarizes it pretty well: “A remarkable memoir of a young woman raised in a survivalist family in Idaho who strives for education while still showing great understanding and love for the world she leaves behind.” If you enjoyed “The Glass Castle” and “Wild,” and you are absorbed by stories that are unbelievably true, you definitely need to buy a copy of Westover’s book.
Westover, who ultimately left her rural home of Buck Peak, Idaho, to achieve a degree from Brigham Young University and eventually a Ph.D. from Cambridge, writes with both academic precision and emotional depth. Journals from her childhood offer windows into exactly what she was thinking as she endured abuse from her older brother, and Westover’s incredibly honest, powerful narrative speaks to her own strength and determination to grow beyond the small world her Mormon father created for her.
It’s one of those “can’t-put-down-just-one-more-chapter” kind of stories. And one where, every few pages, I had to remind myself that the book was indeed real.
Here are the other stories Obama read this summer. While I haven’t read each of them, based on our similar response to “Educated,” Itrust his recommendations:
