By Daniella Snyder

I’m Daniella Snyder, a graduate student at Villanova University, and your ‘Cat in Falvey Library’s stacks. I’ll be posting about academics–from research to study habits and everything in between–and how the Falvey Memorial Library can play a large role in your success here on campus!

Hey, Wildcats, if your quarantine time looks anything like mine, you’ve had some free time on your hands. Why don’t you use that free time to get ahead? Crack open Villanova’s next One Book: Educated by Tara Westover.

Westover will speak to the University community on Sept. 9, 2021. If you can’t get your hands on a copy (you can borrow the e-book in Falvey’s catalog), consider this week’s blog post as your introductory guide to the next campus-wide read.

Seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom, Westover was born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho and prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches. In the summer, she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter, she salvaged in her father’s junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Westover never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when Westover’s older brother became violent.

Then, lacking a formal education, Westover began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the Civil Rights movement.

Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home. She pursued learning for a decade, graduating magna cum laude from Brigham Young University in 2008 and subsequently winning a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She received an MPhil from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 2009 and in 2014 was awarded a PhD in history. Currently, she is a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center, working on projects related to media and political polarization. Educated is her first book (tarawestover.com).

Aside from being selected as Villanova’s next One Book, Educated was named the Nonfiction Book of the Year by the American Booksellers Association, the winner of the 2018 Goodreads Choice Award for Memoir, a double-finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, and one of The New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2018, among many other accolades and awards.

If you’d like to hear more, check out Westover’s interview on The Ellen Show, her interview on CBS, and her interview with PBS.

*Note: Tara Westover’s visit to campus was originally scheduled to take place in Sept. of 2020; however, due to the impact of COVID-19, the visit had to be moved to Sept. 9, 2021. Mark your calendars!

Daniella Snyder is a graduate assistant in the communication and marketing department at Falvey Memorial Library and a graduate student in the English department. This week, she’s reading The Best American Food Writing 2019.

I’m Daniella Snyder, a second-year graduate student at Villanova University, and your ‘Cat in Falvey Library’s Stacks. I’ll be posting about academics– from research to study habits and everything in between– and how Falvey Library can play a large role in your success here on campus!

For the 2019-2020 academic year, the One Book Committee selected I Will Always Write Back, co-authored by Villanova alumnus, Martin Ganda ’07 CLAS. The goal of the One Book Villanova program is to find a common subject that will unite us in good conversation about a culturally rich topic from which we draw great insight.

Thursday, Sept. 19, Ganda will return to campus to deliver his One Book Lecture as part of the St. Thomas of Villanova Celebration. The lecture will start at 6:00 p.m. in the Villanova Room (Connelly Center). Dozens of copies of Ganda’s book are still available for loan from Falvey.

Before the lecture, join Martin Ganda for a book signing in the Falvey Library Speakers’ Corner at 4:30 p.m.

Following the festivities on Thursday, we look forward to seeing you at programs that will continue our conversation around themes raised in our One Book. For example, you could participate in “The Campus Pen Pal Program:” Grab a copy of a postcard (in Falvey, the Student Life office, or Dougherty Hall) and answer some questions about yourself. In return, take a completed postcard to learn more about a fellow Villanovan and make contact with them, just like Caitlin and Martin did in I Will Always Write Back.