[Boomer]

I saw the author interviewed at an event, sponsored by an Ohio library. It was in a campus auditorium and it was SRO. Women of all ages were there.

Bonnie Garmus is 66 and this is her very first published book. Her career has been as a copywriter. She is a delightful interview, very funny and insightful.

She said her agent wanted her to leave out the dog. HAH! 6:30 is a wonderful character and integral to the storyline. (Her real-life dog’s name is 99.)

Garmus said she had to order a 1950s chemistry book on eBay to teach herself chemistry from the ‘50s, so she would not have any anachronisms in the 1950s setting of the book. (Don’t worry. You do not have to wade through a lot of chemistry in the book. She just makes sure that when she does write about it as part of the story, she gets it right.)

I recommended this one to my book club and everyone loved it — and some found good discussion when recommending it to their daughters and daughters-in-law. I call books like this “Women Trapped in Time” books. Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant chemist trapped in the 1950s world of men in science. After some very sad events, she ends up with a cooking show. Cooking is chemistry, after all. Her cooking show has a lot more to it than what was expected.

The AppleTV version seems to be changing some things. And 6:30 is a doodle. He is an excellent actor, but I don’t think there were doodles in the 1950s. Of course he could have been an an unplanned doodle, I guess.

Anyway, I loved the book.

Boomer