Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Thank you to Lynda for the following summary of our discussion.

Most people liked the book, some really liked it and some loved it! It was an original plot with new ideaa.

One person struggled to see the 1960’s ladies around the tv, others felt that the ladies liked the fact THEY were being spoken to.

One was gripped from the first page and didn’t want it to finish.

We considered whether Elizabeth Zott was autistic, she was certainly very single-minded, Her daughter was definitely more 'rounded' than her mother.

One person galloped through, enjoying the humour and the tragedy. Another felt like it was a translated  version of women's life in 2023 back to the 60s and couldn’t cope with the transposition.

Others felt it was representative but questioned whether the level of awareness wasn’t that sharp.

There always have been mavericks!

Someone’s 91 year old mother loved it and thought it was representative of the time.

It was so quirky and obviously not real but that made it more truthful somehow.

We loved the dog and the cooking.

We felt Elizabeth's pain when tragedy struck.

One of the group read the book over a long time, reading just a few minutes at a time.  She felt this contributed to why the book didn’t grab her and she wondered where the book was going at times although it all tied together as she got to the end but she did find she got bored.  Moving from one crisis to the next without a break had the effect of making this reader disengage. (Note this was not the experience of the rest of the group.)  That being said she would still recommend the book because it is so original, you’ve just got to “tolerate the excessive quirkiness”.

Bits made people laugh out loud and the dog was amazing! We understand the dog is based on the authors dog named Friday.  It was a very intuitive dog!

The author is a rower.  In rowing everyone has to be in balance.  The book seems to be saying this is what is wrong in society: men and religion have too much control, it is out of balance!

One incident involving rape, does “pull you up from the bubble of enjoyment”!  It is shocking but totally believable.

The best bit was when the TV producer (the man in 'power') was coming towards Elizabeth with a knife!

We could imagine this book as a film.

How would we describe it?

• Refreshing;

• Thought provoking;

• Bit patronising;

• Page turner;

Most of us were sad (or even devastated) to have finished it.

We discussed whether this might be a 'woman’s book' but at least one husband is enjoying it.

Book Choices for Summer

Wow, it's Summer already! 

The weather is looking good for our meeting on Thursday 25th May at 8pm. Felicity has kindly offered to host. If you need to know how to find Felicity please email me, text me or give me a call. We will be discussing The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers, and choosing our next book from the following selection. 

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

First published in 1905, The House of Mirth shocked the New York society it so deftly chronicles, portraying the moral, social and economic restraints on a woman who dared to claim the privileges of marriage without assuming the responsibilities.

Lily Bart, beautiful, witty and sophisticated, is accepted by 'old money' and courted by the growing tribe of nouveaux riches. But as she nears thirty, her foothold becomes precarious; a poor girl with expensive tastes, she needs a husband to preserve her social standing, and to maintain her in the luxury she has come to expect. Whilst many have sought her, something - fastidiousness or integrity - prevents her from making a 'suitable' match.

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

"But you do," he went on, not waiting for contradiction. "You love the boy, body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you, and no other word expresses it ..."

Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her, until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George.

Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart?

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

The serene and maternal Mrs. Ramsay, the tragic, yet absurd Mr. Ramsay, and their children and assorted guests are on holiday on the Isle of Skye. From the seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse, Woolf constructs a remarkable, moving examination of the complex tensions and allegiances of family life and the conflict between men and women.

As time winds its way through their lives, the Ramsays face, alone and simultaneously, the greatest of human challenges and its greatest triumph—the human capacity for change.