The Silver Linings Playbook

The Silver Linings Playbook is Matthew Quick's debut novel, narrated by Pat Peoples, a former history teacher who returns to his parents' home in suburban New Jersey after a long stay in a psychiatric facility. Pat has lost track of how much time has passed and clings to a single conviction: that life is a movie produced by God, and that his "apart time" from his estranged wife, Nikki, is building toward a happy reunion. To win her back, he throws himself into a relentless program of fitness, kindness, and self-improvement.

His plan collides with Tiffany, a young widow wrestling with her own grief and depression, who offers Pat a bargain neither of them fully understands. Around them orbit Pat's anxious mother, his football-obsessed father, and a Philadelphia Eagles season that becomes a barometer for everyone's hopes.

Warm, funny, and unsparing about mental illness, the novel became the basis for the Oscar-winning 2012 film. It is a story about optimism as both a lifeline and a delusion, and about the messy, ordinary work of getting better.