STO: Bestseller Readalikes: Lessons in Chemistry

When her notorious, hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled, and agoraphobic mother goes missing, teenage Bee begins a trip that takes her to the ends of the Earth to find her. Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she is a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she is a disgrace; to design mavens, she is a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply,...

"Rosalind Franklin knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture--one more after thousands--she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins who'd rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her. Then it finally happens--the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. But what happens...

"The year is 1969. Dick Nixon was just sworn in as the thirty-seventh President of the United States. Neil Armstrong just took one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind. And notable Palm Springs socialite Maxine Simmons just found out that her husband is leaving her for his twenty-two-year-old secretary. After a public meltdown at Thanksgiving, Maxine finds herself not only divorced but exiled to Scottsdale, Arizona. However, these desert...

"With delectable prose, a sharp heroine ahead of her time, and an adventure across the English countryside in search of great food, Good Taste is the perfect historical novel for fans of Dear Mrs. Bird and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. You can tell a lot about a person from what they like to eat... England in 1932 is in the grip of the Great Depression. Stella Douglas, author of a much-loved but not very successful biography,...

'Why Euridice and Antenor married, no one knows for certain.' Euridice is bright and ambitious. But this is Brazil in the 1940s, and society expects her to be a loving wife and mother. While Antenor is busy congratulating himself on his excellent catch, Euridice spends her humdrum days ironing his shirts and removing the lumps of onion from his food, dreaming of the success she could have made of herself - as a writer, dressmaker or culinary whizz...

"In 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admitted to discriminating against women on its faculty, forcing institutions across the country to confront a problem they had long ignored: the need for more women at the top levels of science. Written by the journalist who broke the story for The Boston Globe, The Exceptions is the untold story of how sixteen highly accomplished women on the MIT faculty came together to do the work that triggered...

Hedy Kiesler is lucky. Her beauty leads to a starring role in a controversial film and marriage to a powerful Austrian arms dealer, allowing her to evade Nazi persecution despite her Jewish heritage. But Hedy is also intelligent. At lavish Vienna dinner parties, she overhears the Third Reich's plans. One night in 1937, desperate to escape her controlling husband and the rise of the Nazis, she disguises herself and flees her husband's castle. She lands...

Berlin, 1934. Ilse Meyer is the aristocratic wife of a scientist whose post-WWI fortunes change for the better when Ilse's husband, Jurgen, is recruited for Hitler's new rocket program. Although Ilse and Jurgen do not share the popular political views rising in Germany, Jurgen's new job forces them to consider what they must sacrifice morally for their financial security. But too late they realize the Nazi's plans to weaponize Jurgen's technology...