Shelfology Book Pairing

A Memoir

by Tara Westover

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER '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 Tara Westover grew up preparing for the End of Days, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. She spent her summers bottling peaches and her winters rotating emergency supplies, hoping that when the World of Men failed, her family would continue on, unaffected. 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 doctors or hospitals. According to the state and federal government, she didn't exist. As she grew older, her father became more radical, and her brother, more violent. At sixteen Tara decided to educate herself. Her struggle for knowledge would take her far from her Idaho mountains, over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd travelled too far. If there was still a way home. EDUCATED is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief that comes with the severing of the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, from her singular experience Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes, and the will to change it.

Film Tie-In

by Herman Koch

Paul Lohman and his wife Claire are going out to dinner with Paul's brother Serge, a charismatic and ambitious politician, and his wife Babette. Paul knows the evening will not be fun. The restaurant will be overpriced and pretentious, the head waiter will bore on about the organically certified free-range this and artisan-fed that, and almost everything about Serge, especially his success, will infuriate Paul. But as the evening wears on it becomes clear that tonight's dinner will be even more difficult than usual. There is something the two couples have to discuss. It's about their teenage sons and the very bad things they have been doing. And it's about how far two sets of parents will go to save their children from the consequences of their actions. An international publishing sensation, The Dinner has global sales of more than 2.5 million copies. A major feature film adaption starring Steve Coogan, Richard Gere, Laura Linney and Rebecca Hall will be released in mid-2017.