Lessons in Chemistry (novel)
2022 novel by Bonnie Garmus
Lessons in Chemistry is a novel by Bonnie Garmus. Published by Doubleday in April 2022, it is Garmus's debut novel. It tells the story of Elizabeth Zott, who becomes a beloved cooking show host in 1960s Southern California after being fired as a chemist four years earlier. It was adapted into an Apple TV+ miniseries that debuted on October 13, 2023.
Inception
Garmus told People magazine that she wrote Lessons in Chemistry after her previous novel was rejected by 98 publishers because it was "too long". The book was originally called "Introduction to Chemistry", but was later renamed by the author's agent, Felicity Blunt. It was published a few days before the author turned 65 in 2022.
The book was inspired by Garmus's experience as a creative director in an advertising agency, in particular after a frustrating meeting where a male co-worker took credit for one of her ideas. While writing Lessons in Chemistry, Garmus was a full-time copywriter but taught herself some school-level chemistry, attempting experiments from The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments. She said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times: "The fire department had to come twice for the amount of flames in my flat".
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q116225249. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2022 and 2023.
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