This month we’re reading HALF OF A YELLOW SUN by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Listeners might remember Episode 88 when our guest to discuss Chinua Achebe’s THINGS FALL ABOUT, Dr. Thomas Jay Lynn, mentioned one of his favorite books about Africa was HALF OF A YELLOW SUN. We made a note of that, and here we are! Chinua Achebe’s THINGS FALL apart was one of Linny’s favorite books we’ve read. So, she was interested to read this book that takes place 80 years later. Nigeria is breaking apart and the Igbo people in southeastern Nigeria declare themselves a separate country called Biafra. This novel is set in the late 1960s immediately before and during the Biafran war and we meet a lot of characters, but for Nancy, it is really the story about the private lives of 20-something twin sisters, Olanna and Kainene and the choice they make turning this turbulent time. They come from an affluent and wealthy family and they’ve been educated in England. Olanna is the “beauty” and she is a people pleaser, and lacks confidence. Kainene is not beautiful and is blunt and is successfully assuming leadership of her father’s businesses. Neither Linny nor Nancy knew much about Biafra before reading this book. Linny said she knows there has always been lots of political unrest in Africa. Nancy talks about why she thinks that is a result of colonialization.

The war has a huge impact on the arc of all the characters. Olanna, because Odenigbo disintegrates, must step up and help her family survive and also becomes stronger and more confident. Kainene is confident and competent and becomes more so, eventually operating a refugee camp, becoming more a humanitarian.

Nancy thinks Ugwu’s journey from innocence to moral disintegration is a commentary on war. What does war do to people? We kill each other and perpetrate other inhumanities. Linny says by the end of the war, the characters have to figure out how to pick up the pieces of who they are and try to move on.

Today we interview Dr. Ted Hamann about EDUCATED, a memoir by Tara Westover. Ted is the Charles Bessey professor of teaching, learning and teacher education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Ted is an anthropologist of education with a primary scholarly focus on the interface between education policy and practice. He is author/editor of 14 books/monographs/journal special issues and has published almost 100 journal articles and book chapters. In 2019, Hamann served as a Fulbright Garcia-Robles U.S. Scholar at the Tijuana campus of the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional studying binational higher education collaborations that were intended to better prepare educators in both the United States and Mexico. He is an AERA fellow of the American +Education Research Association and a NEPC fellow at the National Education Policy Center.

Ted tells us education is an aspect of anthropology because it is the way peoples have decided to pass on their humanity. Ted’s work looks at education through the lens of anthropological methods at investigating what is going on in classrooms, in teacher education, in teaching communities, and so on. The imagining of who we are, such as Tara’s quest in EDUCATED, is partially an anthropological question. We delve into what education means, in general, and what it meant to Tara. Linny was mostly interested in what happened outside the classroom, but Nancy keeps insisting what happens in the classroom mattered. Ted acknowledges that "school" is helpful to some but it can also be harmful. Tara brought a unique perspective, as well as a unique set of assets to her college experience. In fact, though difficult, her learned self-reliance and persistence were likely crucial to her eventual success. Linny is skeptical that most students have the sort of engaging and life-changing experience that Tara did, and that Ted and Nancy keep talking about. She just wanted to get through school so she won't have to work in a factory! Eventually, she does talk about her Master's education and how that mattered. Ted agrees that the voluntariness and the reason for being in a classroom matters. Tara had a good reason to be in those classrooms. Ted tells us about his research in school as a community and teacher recruitment from within difficult to staff schools.

Our September book, EDUCATED, is a memoir by Tara Westover. The youngest of seven children, Tara recounts her experience growing up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho, living mostly in isolation with her family, no formal education, not much money, and few ties to the surrounding community. Against all odds, Tara decides to follow the example of an estranged brother who has gone to college. Her quest for knowledge takes her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University, and further divides her from the family that was once her world.

Linny says this is the kind of book that Nancy and Linny could talk about for hours, laying on a bed. It was riveting and had so many components. In the end, Nancy thought it was a book about identity. Linny loved the complexity of the family’s dysfunction and mental health issues.

Tara is supposed to be home-schooled, but in reality, there is no schooling. Tara’s father owns a junkyard and presses his children into working with him with little regard to their safety. He has a terrible temper, little regard for safety, self-aggrandizing opinions, and expectes unconditional obedience, especially from his wife and his daughters.

As Tara gets older, she starts seeing cracks in her father’s edifice. His prophecies don’t come to fruition. She notices her mother, though extremely submissive, allows her to do things, but then won’t stand up to Gene when things blow up. Instead, Tara is left to defend herself. Tara doesn’t like how her family basically disowns her brother, Luke, who decides to go to BYU. The lesson is if you disobey you are expelled. Tara suffers physical and emotional abuse but even in her journals, she downplays the problems and lies to herself about the abuse she is experiencing. Her brother Shawn is like a more violent Gene who is allowed to be physically abusive to (and nearly kill) Tara, her older sister, Audrey, and his various girlfriends and his eventual wife. No one really calls him to task but instead it isn’t happening. As she furthers her education and attempts to come to terms with her family’s view of the world, she is basically given a choice of “believe the family stories of how the world operates or be cast out.”

Linny and Nancy both say EDUCATED is a 10/10 read!

We chat with Laura Rudacille, author of this month's book, CATCHING STARS. She is an author and event speaker, specializing in women’s enrichment. Laura has written five novels and contributed inspirational articles to four publications. She’s a licensed cosmetologist and salon owner in York, Pennsylvania. Yes, that’s where Linny lives! For ten years, Laura served as choreographer for a local high school theater program. Laura tells us she was never too much of a reader because she hated being told in school what she had to read. As a hair salon owner, she observed her clients’ reading books while their hair was drying or processing. Nora Roberts was a favorite. Then Laura found out that Nora lives nearby in Maryland. She went to some events Nora hosted and she found out Nora is just a regular person who took up writing when her kids were driving her crazy during a snowstorm. Later after Laura began trying to write, Laura’s mom brought her a box full of writing she had done that she had forgotten about. So, she was a writer as a youngster. Laura handwrote her first book, but a friend transcribed the book into digital form and urged Laura to get it published. Laura realizes now that she has always been an observer of people. She is a conversationalist, of course, behind her salon chair so she tends to be conversationally-driven. HERE’S THE THING was her first book. Her 9th grade English teacher gave her an exhaustive review that helped her improve it. One year, Laura’s family was vacationing in Chincoteague Island where she was inspired to envision a four-book series. She published SALTWATER COWBOY, the first book of the series. Then LATE TO BREAKFAST, and CATCHING STARS. She wrote INVISIBLE WOMAN, a woman’s fictional celebration about coming into her 40s. She thought another book of the series would be WAITING FOR SOMEDAY, but she skipped it and it is forthcoming, set in Philadelphia but with a visit to Chincoteague Island. Linny regales Nancy with stories of her recent trip to the shore near Chincoteague. Nancy updates Linny on her tennis game. Laughs abound.

It’s the summer of great beach reads on the Front Porch! This month we travel to Chincoteague Island. And, Linny this very next weekend is, in real life, on her way to the shore right near Chincoteague! But, in our book this month, CATCHING STARS, Lindy Colton tries to forget her violent father by leaving her beloved mom and their home on Chincoteague Island to chase her dream of becoming a famous potter. Soon, she seems to be achieving all she could ever desire, including an engagement to the rich, charismatic Hayward Livingston. But, as that relationship curdles into a replica of her mother’s abuse at the hands of Lindy’s father, Lindy travels back to Chincoteague Island to rediscover who she is and where is home. Nancy and Linny talk about the themes of intergenerational domestic violence and why they love the characters of Celeste and Tucker. Nancy recalls her recent pottery throwing class and Linny reminisces about her high school experience snaking a lump of clay into a mug.

In this episode, we’re discussing a brand-new book titled I WILL BLOSSOM ANYWAY by Disha Bose. This is a book about a young expat, Durga, who has moved from her native Calcutta, India to Ireland. Durga comes from an educated, middle-class family that observes traditional Indian ways, including “arranged” marriages. Durga is anxious to escape what she thinks of as the confines of her family and learn who she is without them around telling her who she must be. However, leaving their opinions behind is not as easy as she thinks it will be. This novel explores cultural differences and family conflicts but in a tender way. It would be a great beach read.

Today we interview Erica Slason about THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE, by James McBride, and its setting in Pottstown, PA. Erica Slason joined the Historical Society of Montgomery County as archivist in 2022. Pottstown is in Montgomery County. Erica has written about the historical Pottstown portrayed in THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE. We visit with Erica about the Pottstown portrayed by James McBride and learn there really is a Chicken Hill neighborhood and that Pottstown did experience an immigration boom during the 1910s-30s. In fact, Erica tells us, those interested in learning about Pottstown from that era wouldn’t go wrong in reading this book. Erica and Nancy discover many similarities between them: alma mater, musical instruments, and an affinity for spending childhood recesses in the library. Erica foregrounds for us the experience of those whose stories are not told as often as Christian White men’s stories, and also tells us what an archivist actually does! We also laugh.

We're dropping this episode a week earlier than usual since Nancy is heading to Boulder. And, we can't wait to introduce you to James McBride's recent novel - THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE. This is a book about community and relationships, good and bad, in 1920s-30s Pottstown, Pennsylvania. We meet and grow to love the "outcast" people who live in the Chicken Hill neighborhood. These are the immigrants from other countries, the formerly enslaved people from the South, the non-Protestants (e.g., the Jews and the Catholics), and the poor. The first half of the book is almost a short story collection about these characters, each of whom steps forward for a momentary starring role. About half way through the book, the novel begins circling around the story of two of the characters: Chona, the proprietor of the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, and Dodo, a young orphan boy recently deafened by an exploding stove. It's almost like a jazz piece, perhaps not a surprise given that James McBride is a jazz musician.