Fiction Lessons in Chemistry

Bonnie Garmus: Doubleday, $33

Debut author Garmus’s fictional chemist Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant, beautiful and uncompromising professional fighting sexism, racism and cultural barriers in 1960s America. Determined to never marry nor have children, Zott simply wants the same opportunities to pursue her passion for chemistry as her male colleagues – but there’s nothing simple about equality. The only man to take her seriously and fall in love with her mind is lonely, awkward, Nobel-prize-nominated colleague Calvin Evans. Which goes someway to explain how she somehow finds herself a single mother and reluctant star of America’s most popular TV cooking show. I devoured this delicious book, chock-full of sass, humour and heart. LEANNE EDMISTONE