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Lessons in Chemistry

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing.

But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans, the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with - of all things - her mind. True chemistry results.

Like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later, Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America's most beloved cooking show, Supper at Six. Elizabeth's unusual approach to cooking ('combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride') proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn't just teaching women to cook. She's daring them to change the status quo.

Author
Author
Imprint
Doubleday
ISBN
Publishing date
RRP (paperback)
Pages
978-0857528124
5 April 2022
£5
400 pages
I absolutely loved it… made me cry
Hilary 10/10

Elizabeth Zott is a driven, difficult woman in a world of men. Calvin is her soul mate, but life has different plans for her.
As modern women we often think about the glass ceilings that we hit in our own lives. This is a reminder of those groundbreaking women of the 1960s like "Hidden Figures" that showed us our possiblities as women.
We share her frustrations and successes. A real page-turner. Special mention to the dog narrator who is way smarter than most of the men in this story.
Linda A solid ten for me.

What a fabulous book! Probably the best I read last year. It depicts what a woman has to do to survive in the man’s world of science in the 1950’s. It is beautiful written with humour and pathos and interesting characters, including Six-thirty, the dog, who gets to do some of the narration! There is a section that made me cry but it didn’t spoil my overall enjoyment of the book.
Catherine 9.5/10.

Bonnie Garmus, the author of Lessons in Chemistry, has crafted her characters beautifully and I was instantly drawn in and invested in their lives. However, the way Bonnie then led me further into the narrative changed my feelings to the extent that it clouded how I felt towards the rest of the story, which was also beautifully told.
Glenda The Empathy Problem4/10
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