Historical fiction
Lessons in Chemistry
Debut
We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Bonnie Garmus, on your first book!
Quick take
This novel has the perfect molecular structure: a charming protagonist, humor, a lovable dog, and feminist bonafides.
Good to know
Feminist
Brainy
Buzzy
Underdog
Synopsis
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 as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes 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.
But 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.
Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.
Content warning
This book contains descriptions of sexual assault.
Free sample
Get an early look from the first pages of Lessons in Chemistry.
Lessons in Chemistry
CHAPTER 1
November 1961
Back in 1961, when women wore shirtwaist dresses and joined garden clubs and drove legions of children around in seatbeltless cars without giving it a second thought; back before anyone knew there’d even be a sixties movement, much less one that its participants would spend the next sixty years chronicling; back when the big wars were over and the secret wars had just begun and people were starting to think fresh and believe everything was possible, the thirty-year-old mother of Madeline Zott rose before dawn every morning and felt certain of just one thing: her life was over.
Despite that certainty, she made her way to the lab to pack her daughter’s lunch.
Fuel for learning, Elizabeth Zott wrote on a small slip of paper before tucking it into her daughter’s lunch box. Then she paused, her pencil in midair, as if reconsidering. Play sports at recess but do not automatically let the boys win, she wrote on another slip. Then she paused again, tapping her pencil against the table. It is not your imagination, she wrote on a third. Most people are awful. She placed the last two on top.
Most young children can’t read, and if they can, it’s mostly words like “dog” and “go.” But Madeline had been reading since age three and, now, at age five, was already through most of Dickens.
Madeline was that kind of child—the kind who could hum a Bach concerto but couldn’t tie her own shoes; who could explain the earth’s rotation but stumbled at tic-tac-toe. And that was the problem. Because while musical prodigies are always celebrated, early readers aren’t. And that’s because early readers are only good at something others will eventually be good at, too. So being first isn’t special—it’s just annoying.
Madeline understood this. That’s why she made it a point each morning—after her mother had left and while her babysitter neighbor, Harriet, was busy—to extract the notes from the lunch box, read them, then store them with all the other notes that she kept in a shoebox in the back of her closet. Once at school she pretended to be like all the other kids: basically illiterate. To Madeline, fitting in mattered more than anything. And her proof was irrefutable: her mother had never fit in and look what happened to her.
Why I love it
Claire Lombardo
Author, The Most Fun We Ever Had
I am grateful for books always, but especially lately, these last—well, couple of years now, when all I want is to be elsewhere, doing something interesting in the company of people who make me happy. So I was especially grateful to find myself in the world of Elizabeth Zott and Lessons in Chemistry, a cheerful, cinematic, whip-smart novel about finding one’s family and the ongoing fight for gender equality. (Also, cooking! And television! And teaching dogs how to read!)
Why did I love this book? It’s shrewd and vibrant and carefully plotted. But most of all I loved it because reading it made me feel good, hopeful even. Lessons in Chemistry is, in addition to being a very funny novel, refreshingly earnest, a word I use carefully and as a high compliment. This is a book that is complicit with its reader and takes care of her, allowing her to walk away from it feeling optimistic about being a person in the world.
And did I mention Six-Thirty? He’s one of the best fictional dogs I’ve ever encountered. Honestly, I felt a superlative affection for almost every character in this book and continued to think about them—and root for them—long after I finished reading. In short: it’s a fabulous novel. I hope you’ll read it and relish its companionship as much as I did.
Member ratings (33,881)
Kaitlyn R.
Orlando, FL
What a fantastic read. It is seriously such a beautiful book. The characters are great and relatable. I found my self gasping, then laughing, then crying then laughing again ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ amazing story!
Ashley C.
Huntsville, AL
This book is phenomenal. I loved every bit of it from start to finish. Elizabeth Zott is a force - one can’t help but feel invested in her life. She’s a bit “Eleanor Oliphant” - exactly who she is. ❤️
Natasha G.
NEW HOPE, MN
I thought the story, the character, and her flaws were brilliant, but my book club was full of mixed reviews; they scoffed her methods of mothering...or rather, lack thereof. It's fiction, guys????????♀️
Allie C.
Ogden, UT
I couldn’t get enough of this book. It sucked me in to the very end. Some things affect you in ways that can’t really be put into words. That’s the hold this book has on me. It’s a beautiful story.
Patti D.
Canton, MI
Fabulous book! I remember the early 60’s, the women’s fight for equality was uppermost in my mind. This book is funny,sad,educational with a beautiful ending. I can’t believe this is a debut! Kudos!