McCall Smith Gifts

A few weeks back, my husband was about to place an order for three books, two of which were Thorne Smith titles.  When he mentioned this, I thought, "aha!  Smith!  Books!" and it triggered a series of other thoughts that I won't discuss here but that did eventually lead to Alexander McCall Smith, the rather prolific author who seemingly knows no boundaries of genre.  McCall Smith's most well known series is most likely the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which currently has seventeen titles and is going strong.  At the moment, I'm reading The Kalahari Typing School for Men, a lovely idea Mma Makutsi has for a business venture that is her own, with minimal overhead, and lots of students.  My husband ordered me 44 titles of McCall Smith's, including the rest of this series.  He's amazing, sigh, my husband is.  He spoils me so.

Years ago, I'd listened to an audio of McCall Smith's The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, which is the second in the Professor Doctor Moritz~Maria von Igelfeld series.  The good Professor Doctor is a somewhat silly, yet troubled, man who manages to get himself into some rather sticky situations and then goes on to make them worse by being unable to concede that he has made a mistake, perhaps misspoken, and surely is not qualified to do whatever it is that he has taken on.  I'm rather looking forward to reading this myself, instead of listening to it while I crochet endless granny squares that were both brightly colorful and not my tastes.  But first, I'll read Portuguese Verbs, because I like to read books in series in the order which the author either intended or published them...sometimes that is the same order, but not always.

I do not have all McCall Smith's series, since I've not collected all the children's books.  But I do have those titles in The Sunday Philosophy Club.  The first book of the series is pictured to the left.  I don't want to get all the characters from all the series confused in my mind, but this will probably be the next series I tackle after the Ladies'.  Sometimes, this series is called Isabel Dalhousie books, named after the protagonist.

I do recall listening to some thing with a little boy named Bertie, who wore pink denims but whose politically correct mother insisted that they were not pink at all.  I did not realize when I checked the audio out from our local public library that it was actually part of the 44 Scotland Street series.  I'll wait awhile to get into this series, since there are so many to titles to read before I can even approach this.

Then I came across yet another McCall Smith series, Corduroy Mansions.  I'd not heard, nor seen, these prior to a few weeks back.  It too does appear to be a location specific driven series that focuses on the set of characters living in that particular place.  It's not a children's series, though the cover might appear to be so.

The very first book of Alexander McCall Smith's I'd listened to years ago was The Girl Who Married a Lion and Other Tales from Africa.  It would become my favorite of his.  I do like his Precious series, a children's series set in Botswana, featuring the main character of his The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Mma Precious Ramotse, when she was a child herself.  I do plan to get the rest of the children's books, but for now, I am satisfied with what I do have.  That also includes several of his stand~alone novels, like the Forever Girl and Emma:  A Modern Retelling.

Thank you so very much, Jerry.

I do so love and appreciate you!