Pi Phi Pages Book Review: ME BEFORE YOU by Jojo Moyes

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author, Book Club, book review, books, Dignitas, Goodreads, Jojo Moyes, Life, Literature, Me Before You, Pi Beta Phi, Pi Phi Pages, reading, writing

They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.

(Story synopsis and cover image from goodreads.com)

February brought another great book to the reading list for the Pi Phi Pages Book Club: Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. As with the January book, A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, this novel is also a movie and one that is also really relevant to the world that we live in. Moyes creates a wonderful story and is one that I believe every person should take the time to read. However, I must start this off by already disagreeing with part of the story summary from above…I don’t think this is a “romance” story, or a “love story” in the typical sense. Nope, instead I think it is something so much more.

(Warning: This review may contain, what some people could consider, spoilers.)

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Book Review: A MAN CALLED OVE by Fredrik Backman

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A Man Called Ove, Audre Lorde, author, Book Club, book review, books, Fredrik Backman, Goodreads, Inspiration, Life, Literature, Pi Beta Phi, Pi Phi Pages, Quote, reading

A grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.

(Story synopsis and cover image from goodreads.com)

A new year of reading has started! The 2017 Pi Beta Phi book club had picked A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. What I am really enjoying so far about the list of titles for the year, is that they are following the theme of books that will be turned into (or have been made into) movies. I find this to be a great incentive to read the books before watching the movie, and also to expand the titles that I read at the same time.

Forming Relationships Through Literature: NaBloPoMo Day 10

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Book Club, books, Inspiration, Life, Literature, NaBloPoMo, P G Wodehouse, Quote, reading, relationships, Turn Right at Machu Picchu, writing

There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.

-P. G. Wodehouse

Many times conversations have begun with the discussion of books, at least for me they have. Even before I became an English teacher, many of my conversations growing up and in college were about the books that I had read or was currently reading.

Growing up, my parents always read to me and then

Book Review: HE WANTED THE MOON by Mimi Baird

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author, Book Club, book review, books, Dr. Perry Baird, Goodreads, He Wanted the Moon, Literature, Memoir, mental illness, Mimi Baird, nonfiction, Pi Beta Phi, Pi Phi Pages, reading, writing

Dr. Perry Baird, a rising medical star in the late 1920s and 1930s, presciently began to study the biochemical root of manic depression, just as he began to suffer from it himself. By the time the results of his groundbreaking experiments were published, Dr. Baird had been institutionalized multiple times, his medical license revoked, and his family estranged. He later received a lobotomy and died from a consequent seizure, his research incomplete, his achievements unrecognized.

Mimi Baird grew up never fully knowing her father’s story. Decades later, a string of surprising coincidences led to the recovery of a manuscript that Dr. Baird had worked on throughout his brutal institutionalization, confinement, and escape. This remarkable document, reflecting periods of both manic exhilaration and clear-headed health, presents a startling portrait of a man who was a uniquely astute observer of his own condition, struggling with a disease for which there was no cure, racing against time to unlock the key to treatment before his illness became impossible to manage.

Fifty years after being told her father would forever be “away,” Mimi Baird embarked on a crusade to piece together the memoir and the man, to understand the legacy she had inherited…

(Synopsis from Broadway Book paperback edition; image from goodreads.com)

As soon as my copy of He Wanted the Moon by Mimi Baird arrived in the mail, I immediately wanted to start reading the May book for the Pi Beta Phi book club, Pi Phi Pages. However, I have a rule about my book club books and that is to finish the previous month’s book before I start the next one, so I knew I had to finish reading Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand before I could start He Wanted the Moon. (You can read my review of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand here.)

Book Review: MAJOR PETTIGREW’S LAST STAND by Helen Simonson

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From the 2011 Random House Trade Paperback edition:
“In the small village of Edgecombe St. Mary in the English countryside lives Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson’s wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, the Major leads a quiet life valuing the proper things that Englishmen have lived by for generations: honor, duty, decorum, and a properly brewed cup of tea. But, then his brother’s death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But, village society insists on embracing him as the quintessential local and regarding her as the permanent foreigner. Can their relationship survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition?”

(Story synopsis and cover image from goodreads.com)

Major Pettrigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson was the Pi Phi Pages read for April. Seeing as how this is now mid-May and I am just now writing my review of it, you might be able to tell that I struggled with reading this novel. I wouldn’t say that the writing of Helen Simonson is bad, I just had a hard time connecting with the characters.

Book Review: HALF THE SKY by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

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author, Book Club, book review, books, Goodreads, Half the Sky, Inspiration, Life, Literature, Nicholas Kristof, nonfiction, Pi Beta Phi, Pi Phi Pages, reading, Sheryl WuDunn, World Lit, writing

From the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, here is a passionate call to arms against the oppression of women around the globe— “the central moral challenge” of our time. Through inspiring stories of extraordinary women, Kristof and WuDunn show that the most effective way to fight global poverty is to unleash the potential of women. They also offer an uplifting do-it-yourself tool kit for those who want to help.

“An unblinking look at one of the seminal moral challenges of our time. This stirring book is at once a savage indictment of gender inequality in the developing world and an inspiring testament to these women’s courage, resilience, and their struggle for hope and recovery. An unexpectedly uplifting read.” -Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner

(Text summary and review from paperback Vintage books edition; cover image from goodreads.com)

Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn was the March book for the Pi Phi Pages book club through Pi Beta Phi. I must admit that when I first saw this book, I was skeptical about reading it for the book club. I was sure that 1) I would never get it read in time with all of the essays I had to grade and 2) I wouldn’t find the book interesting enough to hold my attention. I will freely admit now that I was wrong on so many levels about Half the Sky.