Formulary Book Club: Fall of Giants
Christina Pomykal, Program Manager in the Office of Organizational Effectiveness, Planning, and Assessment, has our March ’24 book recommendation
Story by Ryan McDaniel | photo credit Christina Pomykal | Published March 19, 2024
Each month, the Formulary Book Club introduces a student, staff, faculty, or alumni of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and gets their recommendation for a great read.
This month’s recommendation comes to us from Christina Pomykal, Program Manager for the School’s Office of Organizational Effectiveness, Planning, and Assessment. Christina’s Formulary Book Club recommendation is Fall of Giants by Ken Follett.
The first book of Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy, this epic tale weaves together the narratives of five families across three continents amid the backdrop of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and women’s suffrage. A Welsh mining family fights for workers’ rights. An aristocratic English woman falls in love with a German spy. Orphaned Russian brothers are caught up in the revolution against the aristocracy. An aide to President Woodrow Wilson struggles between politics and his personal life. Can these characters cast off the yolks placed upon them by society?
“People in [the Century Trilogy] felt the world change in huge shifts, and yet we are still here. We are still facing challenges like those before us. There’s turmoil now, as there was turmoil then,” Christina reflects. “Well-told stories at the micro-individual level amid macro-national level tectonic changes, like Ken’s Fall of Giants, helps me remember the meaningful personal connections are what get people through the messy middle part.”
Christina picked the book up at the Big Book Sale event put on by the Friends of the Chapel Hill Public Library. Ken Follett’s name caught her eye as he’s a favorite author of Christina’s father-in-law, Glenn. (She also grabbed Follett’s Pillars of the Earth that day – see our April, 2023 Formulary Book Club story on that one!) “Reading this book gave me a chance to talk with Glenn of his experiences through some tumultuous times, and helped put into perspective that one will see many changes in a lifetime,” Christina explains.
Christina currently serves as the Program Manager for the School’s Office of Organizational Effectiveness, Planning, and Assessment (OE), which is responsible for planning and assessing ongoing quality improvement throughout the School. She has been with the School since 2016, but had a diverse career background prior to joining the Pharmily. “Former lives include high school biology teacher, molecular biologist at Dow Chemical and Pfizer, regulatory scientist at Clorox, elementary science teacher, and stay-at-home mom with various PTA roles and TABLE’s Thursday delivery team,” she recounts.
Outside of work, Christina is a self-proclaimed nerd who loves to read. “I have constantly growing TBR [“To Be Read”] stacks in various places . . . there just isn’t enough time to read all the books,” she says. She also enjoys spending time with her husband and two children. “We do nerdy things,” Christina explains. “Like read, play board games and video games, tinker with things ranging from rock tumbler to welding workshops in Raleigh to 3D printing at home to crocheting Star Wars figurines.”
Thank you, Christina, for the book recommendation!