Lessons in Chemistry's Bonnie Garmus for Peck & Peck

Bonnie Garmus is a coffee-dependent American novelist. Her debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry, was a number one global bestseller and spent almost ninety weeks in the Sunday Times top 10. It was named by New York Times readers as one of the top 100 books of the 21st Century.

Translated into over forty languages, Lessons in Chemistry was honoured with sixteen international literary awards, including the British Book Awards Author of the Year, Waterstones Author of the Year, and Hay Festival's Book of the Year. It was also selected by Queen Camilla for the Queen's Reading Room, and made into an Apple TV limited series.

Bonnie joins us for her second novel, Peck & Peck. An irresistible story about a young man whose life turns upside down when he is hired by the most prestigious, secretive, and dysfunctional poetry journal in the world: the renowned Peck & Peck.

'Charming, uplifting, soulful, and original, Peck & Peck is the perfect successor to Lessons In Chemistry. If you loved Elizabeth Zott, you will adore Batter Gray' KRISTIN HANNAH

'This novel is everything: a love story, a literary thriller, a brilliant satire that's full of humor and heart. Only Bonnie Garmus can write like this' MEG MASON, internationally bestselling author of Sorrow and Bliss

It's 1982, New York City. Crime is on the rise, muggings are in the streets, and Batter Gray, recent college graduate with a skill that no one wants - an 'ear' for poetry - is worried about his future. While all his friends have real jobs, he's folding T-shirts at the Gap. As for love? No. Not unless you count Sallie Mae, the student loan tyrant. He hears from Sallie all the time.

But when Batter gets a dream job at Peck & Peck, the most prestigious poetry quarterly in the world, his life moves into the literary fast lane. Soon Batter is knee-deep in the secret war between the two Editors in Chief, the famous Peck brothers - twins and enemies - as well as being privy to the private affairs of their thirty-nine editors, whose professed mission is the same: Find originality. Reward creativity. Burn the rest. And by 'burn', they mean incinerate.

Because at Peck & Peck, 'good' isn't good enough, 'interesting' doesn't cut it, plagiarists aren't tolerated, and parolees run the mailroom. Still want to submit your poem? Go with God.

Welcome to another dazzling and unforgettable novel from Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry. Hugely original, brilliantly funny and peopled with unforgettable characters, Peck & Peck is both a passionate ode to the written word and a heartwarming exploration of all that makes us human.