Author Tara Westover’s life has been anything but normal, and her autobiography Educated shows that in spades. What lessons can the everyday reader, who probably grew up going to doctors and not working in a junkyard, take from such an extraordinary story? Westover explains how she hopes readers see themselves in her place:

“If someone reads the book and sees their father instead of my father… I’m OK with that,” says Westover. Westover wants Educated to be a filter that allows people to see her experiences as their own.

“It’s an old curse: May you have a writer in the family,” says interviewer and editor of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg. Even as Tara Westover is thousands of miles away from her childhood home in Idaho, her family still remains front and center of her story in Educated. Westover talks about how she became comfortable writing about her family, the good and the bad: 

Education, and especially higher education, has become a cultural statement. A college degree has immense financial payoffs, but some are loathe to wade into a culture that often looks down on those outside of it. Jeffrey Goldberg and Tara Westover discuss how to make the idea of higher education palatable to all Americans:

The first time Tara Westover heard opera, it changed her life. Opera has to be taught in a formal, regimented way, and it made Westover realize the value of education that didn’t come from her parents. Music is what motivated her to go to college, and music is still a grounding force in her life. Take a minute, put some headphones on, and listen to her singing voice: