Curated Reading List
5 books: if Elizabeth Zott is still in your head.
Five highly rated books for readers who finished Lessons in Chemistry: another scientist, another woman they could not keep small, and a few that keep her wit. A note on every book, a question to carry while you read, and about 51 hours of reading in all.
Inside
A note from the concierge
Five highly rated books for readers who finished Lessons in Chemistry: another scientist, another woman they could not keep small, and a few that keep her wit.
Start with Atmosphere if you want another woman in a lab coat. Circe if you want myth. Educated if you want the true story of a mind that would not stay small.
The Concierge
5 books
Taylor Jenkins Reid, 2025
In the early 1980s a reserved astronomer joins NASA's Space Shuttle programme, falls in love with a fellow astronaut, and is tested when a mission goes catastrophically wrong.
Consider: Where in Atmosphere does love show itself through action rather than words?
Madeline Miller, 2018
Exiled to a remote island, the witch of Greek myth hones her craft and her will, and crosses paths with gods, monsters and heroes.
Consider: Who holds power in Circe, and how do they use it?
Tara Westover, 2018
Raised in a survivalist household in rural Idaho, the author teaches herself enough to reach university, and pays a heavy price for the education.
Consider: Which relationship in Educated would you most like to understand better?
Gabrielle Zevin, 2022
Two friends build video games together across three decades, and a partnership that is part love story, part creative rivalry.
Consider: What does friendship demand of the people in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow?
Amor Towles, 2016
Sentenced to house arrest in a grand Moscow hotel in 1922, Count Rostov finds an entire world within its walls.
Consider: What does friendship demand of the people in A Gentleman in Moscow?
Practical
Read together, these 5 books come to about 51 hours. That is a comfortable month at roughly 13 hours a week.
If you want more
Readers who love this list tend to enjoy the following. Each is chosen for how closely it shares the mood and themes of the books above.
Bonnie Garmus, 2022
A brilliant chemist in the 1960s is forced out of her lab and onto a television cooking show, where she teaches women far more than how to make dinner. Shares literary fiction and uplifting with A Gentleman in Moscow.
Kathryn Stockett, 2026
In 1933 Oxford, Mississippi, an orphan, a blunt visiting sister and a woman running out of luck form an unlikely alliance to take back control of their lives. Shares historical fiction and uplifting with A Gentleman in Moscow.
Percival Everett, 2024
Everett retells Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Jim, who is far sharper, and far more dangerous to the story's assumptions, than he lets on. Shares gripping and thought-provoking with Educated.
The books
In the early 1980s a reserved astronomer joins NASA's Space Shuttle programme, falls in love with a fellow astronaut, and is tested when a mission goes catastrophically wrong.
Exiled to a remote island, the witch of Greek myth hones her craft and her will, and crosses paths with gods, monsters and heroes.
Raised in a survivalist household in rural Idaho, the author teaches herself enough to reach university, and pays a heavy price for the education.
Two friends build video games together across three decades, and a partnership that is part love story, part creative rivalry.
Sentenced to house arrest in a grand Moscow hotel in 1922, Count Rostov finds an entire world within its walls.