Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus 

Published by Penguin, 2022

I’ll start with a word I don’t use often: quirky. Elizabeth Zott is quirky – a scientist turned cooking show host. Calvin Evans, chemist, potential Nobel prize winner, rower, is also quirky, so it was inevitable they would meet, although it was less inevitable they’d fall in love, especially given the circumstances of their first meeting.

Set in the 50s and early 60s, when many women could (and many believed should) only aspire to be housewives and mothers, this book has so many themes, it’s hard to know where to begin, sex discrimination, workplace bullying and abuse, love, friendship, grief and so much more.

Then there’s Six-Thirty, a dog who can map and memorise the location of an enemy’s carotid artery. A dog you’d want on your side in a crisis, although I guess you could say he’s quirky too.

Elizabeth uses her cooking skills to challenge assumptions and change the world or at least a part of it. But, to misquote a well known supermarket advert, “it’s not just cooking, it’s scientific cooking”.

I absolutely loved this book, wanting to finish it as quickly as possible to find out what happens, whilst simultaneously never wanting it to end.

“So children, set the table. Your mother needs a moment to herself”. A surprising message for the end of a feminist cooking programme, but then Elizabeth Zott is a surprising woman.

Original, clever and so good I already know it will be my book of the year.