#Sorty books with elizabeth tv#

That's probably the best part of copywriting, is you're always exploring new products, new people, new ideas constantly. But when I sat down to write this book - you know, as a copywriter first, you always write about things you don't know. The last time I took chemistry was in high school. I'm so sorry to tell you that I was terrible. SIMON: You know, when I introduced you as copywriter, creative director and open-water swimmer - you must have been a great chemistry student, too. So she has to fight everything on her own, and she doesn't want to accept help of any kind. And he has a much easier go of it because, you know, he's a man, and she has no help in that regard. He falls in love with her because he realizes that she is essentially brilliant. But I think what really draws them together is the fact that Calvin sees her first for her mind. You know, there are all sorts of hormones involved, of course. GARMUS: (Laughter) Well, you know, true love is actually based on chemistry. She enters into relationship with Calvin, a scientist at her lab, a very eminent scientist. So when she took them seriously, they - it was like they were reawakening, and they were starting to remember who they were, too. And in fact, they were women just like women today that had plenty of dreams and ambitions, but they couldn't aspire to very much. These women at home were often dismissed as average housewives and or, you know, plain Janes, average housewives. GARMUS: I think what makes her show popular is that she treats her audience with respect. SIMON: What do you think makes Elizabeth's television show so popular? SIMON: Elizabeth Zott ends every show by saying, children, set the table. However, boy, we have come some way (laughter), I'm thrilled to report. But I also set it then because that's when my mom was a mom with four kids, and it gave me the opportunity to look at her life through a completely different lens and see what it must have been like for her to live under such severe limitations. One was I kind of needed some reassurance that things have gotten better since the 1960s for women. She seems like a chemical element suspended in a different time almost. She - and so much of your book is absolutely chemistry. SIMON: Tell us about Elizabeth Zott in the early 1960s.

#Sorty books with elizabeth tv#

But her TV show, 'Supper At Six,' and what she calls vinegar and salt - acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride - becomes a huge hit in Bonnie Garmus' debut novel, 'Lessons In Chemistry.' And Bonnie Garmus, who's been a copywriter, creative director and open-water swimmer, joins us now from London. Elizabeth Zott is a chemist who hosts a cooking show because it's the early 1960s and sexism, double standards, outright assault, scientific theft and discrimination all keep her from working as an actual scientist.