Author(s): Bonnie Garmus

Fiction | Claire's Book Talkers

Your ability to change everything - including yourself - starts here 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. SOON TO BE A MAJOR APPLE TV SERIAL, STARRING BRIE LARSON

#4 Best Seller of 2023

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW - CLAIRE

I had so much fun reading this novel! Littered with endearing (ie: forgivably corny!) science witticisms, it offered a brilliantly entertaining yet incisive commentary on discrimination towards women, particularly within traditionally male-dominated industries such as science and mathematics. It tugged on my emotional strings in all the right ways – I laughed, was enraged beyond measure, and ultimately loved the representation of chemistry as an intrinsic part of everyday life. Moving beyond a strictly literal sense, this formed an inspiring metaphorical narrative, where the laws and expectations governing us are only ever a framework for newfound understanding or a different lens through which to view our world. Clever without taking itself too seriously, and bold but not overbearing in its statement, I would wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone in search of an accessible but well-rounded story to get lost in!