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.
Here you can find information on the many titles housed in the Millcreek Community Center Library's book club collection. We have summaries of each book, as well as links to our catalogue, and other resources for reading groups. All titles can be checked out singly or as a set to anyone with a Salt Lake County Library card.
Showing posts with label Sardonic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sardonic. Show all posts
Thursday, July 27, 2023
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
390 pages (April 2022)
Book Page at BookBrowse.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
Review from bookreporter
Review from The Guardian
Review from The New York Times
Review from Publishers Weekly
Inside the Book (Penguin Random House):
Bonnie Garmus on her "subversive" novel (CBS Sunday Morning):
This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.
Title Read-alikes: Park Avenue Summer by Renee Rosen; The Last Animal; by Ramona Ausubel; Mr. & Mrs. American Pie by Juliet McDaniel; Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict; The Exceptions by Kate Zernike; Dearie by Bob Spitz; The Invisible life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha; Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple; The Woman with the Cure by Lynn Cullen; Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout; When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill; The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams; and The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See.
Saturday, September 21, 2019
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
A breakout romantic comedy by the bestselling author of five critically acclaimed novels.
Who says you can't run away from your problems?
You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes - it would be too awkward - and you can't say no - it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.
QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?
ANSWER: You accept them all.
What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.
Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story.
A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.
263 pages (July 2017)
Who says you can't run away from your problems?
You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes - it would be too awkward - and you can't say no - it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.
QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?
ANSWER: You accept them all.
What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.
Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story.
A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.
263 pages (July 2017)
Book Page at BookBrowse.
Lit Guide from LitLovers.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
Andrew Sean Greer talking about Less with Nancy Pearl on Book Lust:
This title is available for download as an eAudioBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.
Title Read-alikes: Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane; Love by Roddy Doyle; Remembrance of Things I Forgot by Bob Smith; Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier; Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner; Honestly, We Meant Well by Grant Ginder; A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall by Andy Abramowitz; This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! by Jonathan Evison; Heart of Junk by Luke Geddes; George and Lizzie by Nancy Pearl; There There by Tommy Orange; Normal People by Sally Rooney; and The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai.
Monday, November 28, 2016
The Seven Good Years: a memoir by Etgar Keret
A brilliant, life-affirming, and hilarious memoir from a “genius” (The New York Times) and master storyteller.
The seven years between the birth of Etgar Keret’s son and the death of his father were good years, though still full of reasons to worry. Lev is born in the midst of a terrorist attack. Etgar’s father gets cancer. The threat of constant war looms over their home and permeates daily life.
What emerges from this dark reality is a series of sublimely absurd ruminations on everything from Etgar’s three-year-old son’s impending military service to the terrorist mind-set behind Angry Birds. There’s Lev’s insistence that he is a cat, releasing him from any human responsibilities or rules. Etgar’s siblings, all very different people who have chosen radically divergent paths in life, come together after his father’s shivah to experience the grief and love that tie a family together forever. This wise, witty memoir—Etgar’s first nonfiction book published in America, and told in his inimitable style—is full of wonder and life and love, poignant insights, and irrepressible humor.
The seven years between the birth of Etgar Keret’s son and the death of his father were good years, though still full of reasons to worry. Lev is born in the midst of a terrorist attack. Etgar’s father gets cancer. The threat of constant war looms over their home and permeates daily life.
What emerges from this dark reality is a series of sublimely absurd ruminations on everything from Etgar’s three-year-old son’s impending military service to the terrorist mind-set behind Angry Birds. There’s Lev’s insistence that he is a cat, releasing him from any human responsibilities or rules. Etgar’s siblings, all very different people who have chosen radically divergent paths in life, come together after his father’s shivah to experience the grief and love that tie a family together forever. This wise, witty memoir—Etgar’s first nonfiction book published in America, and told in his inimitable style—is full of wonder and life and love, poignant insights, and irrepressible humor.
171 pages (June 2015)
Check availability
Author Website
Check availability
Book Page at BookBrowse.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
Review from The New York Times
Etgar Keret at the Free Library of Philadelphia:
This title is available for download as an eBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.
Title Read-alikes: Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast; Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen; The Longest Trip Home by John Grogan; The Rainbow Comes and Goes by Anderson Cooper; The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion; Dimestore by Lee Smith; Reading My Father by Alexandra Styron; Riding with the Ghost by Justin Taylor; A Place of Exodus by David Biespiel; Second Person Singular by Sayed Kashua; A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz; A Table for One by Aharon Appelfeld; and The Hilltop by Assaf Gavron.
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