Shambaditya Ghosal

Reading "Educated" felt like witnessing a remarkable transformation — from a girl who didn’t even know the word “Holocaust” to a woman who earns a PhD and claims her place in the world. Tara Westover’s memoir immerses you in her childhood under a father who distrusted doctors, schools, and the government, raising his children in isolation and danger on a rural Idaho mountainside. What I deeply admired is how she writes without bitterness or self-pity, even when recounting violence, manipulation, and estrangement. Her tone is raw yet reflective, showing how education became both her liberation and her burden. What moved me most was how she captures the price of independence — the loss of family, belonging, and certainty — to gain a sense of self built from her own choices. "Educated" isn’t just a story about schooling; it’s a testament to the resilience it takes to unlearn a past that tried to define you.

Steven Pinker’s "Enlightenment Now" is a sweeping and data-driven defense of reason, science, and humanism as the true engines of human progress. What struck me most is how convincingly Pinker uses evidence—from life expectancy and poverty reduction to declining violence—to show that, despite our pessimism, the world has become far better than it once was. The book isn’t naïvely optimistic; rather, it reminds us that progress is the result of Enlightenment values we too often take for granted. I found the range of facts and charts exhilarating rather than overwhelming, and even where I disagreed with Pinker’s tone or some of his assumptions, I appreciated his intellectual clarity and his courage to push back against fashionable cynicism. It’s a deeply rational, refreshingly hopeful read that challenges me to see modern civilization not as collapsing, but as something fragile and worth defending.

"The Anxious Generation" is a must-read for anyone raising, working with, or teaching young people today. With this book, Haidt has given the world a wake-up call about where we’re headed—and a roadmap for how we can change course.