"Educated" by Tara Westover, "Planet Funny" by Ken Jennings
Top of Mind with Julie Rose - Season 1, Episode 830
- Jun 8, 2018 6:00 am
- 1:42:21 mins
From Home-Schooled Survivalist to Cambridge PhD Guest: Tara Westover, Author of “Educated” Tara Westover was born in Idaho in the mid-1980s to survivalist parents who didn’t believe in public schooling or going to doctors. She spent her days working in her father’s junkyard or stewing herbs for her mother, a talented, self-taught herbalist and midwife. She had no formal education – and not much in the way of home-schooling, either – but Tara Westover somehow managed to get into BYU, and then Cambridge University, where she ultimately earned a PhD. Her memoir, "Educated," has become a sensation, and it’s a New York Times Bestseller. How Comedy Took Over Our Culture Guest: Ken Jennings, Jeopardy! Champion and New York Times Best-Selling Author of “Planet Funny: How Comedy Took Over Our Culture” If you can believe it, there was a time – back in the Mad Men days – when advertising was not supposed to be funny. Neither were politicians or pastors, news reports or airline safety videos. So why is it that today, comedy is our favorite currency? And are we getting to the point where we’ve taken comedy too far?