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Searching... Mount Angel Public Library | McCALL SMITH 44 Scotland St. #07 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
44 SCOTLAND STREET - Book 7
The residents and neighbors of 44 Scotland Street and the city of Edinburgh come to vivid life in these gently satirical, wonderfully perceptive serial novels, featuring six-year-old Bertie, a remarkably precocious boy--just ask his mother.nbsp;nbsp;
If you haven't met the residents of 44 Scotland Street yet, there is no better time, since everyone seems to benbsp;in thenbsp;midst of new beginnings.
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New parents Matthew and Elspeth must muddle through the difficulties of raisingnbsp;theirnbsp;tripletsnbsp;Rognvald, Tobermory and Fegus--there's normal sleep deprivation, and then there's trying to tell the children apart from one another. Angus and Domenica are newly engaged, and now they must negotiate the complex merger of two households. Domenica is also forced to deal with the return of an old flame, while Big Lou has begun the search for a new one, boldly exploring the new world of online datingnbsp;and coming up with an Elvisnbsp;impersonatornbsp;on the first try. And in Bertie's family, there's a shift in power as his father Stuart starts to stand up to overbearing mother, Irene--and then there's Bertie,nbsp;whonbsp;has been thinking that he might want to start over with a new family andnbsp;sonbsp;puts himself up for adoption on eBay.nbsp;nbsp;With his signature charm and gentle wit Alexander McCall Smithnbsp;vividly portrays the lives of Edinburgh's mostnbsp;unique andnbsp;beloved characters.
Author Notes
Alexander McCall Smith was born on August 24, 1948 in Zimbabwe. He was a professor of medical law at the University of Edinburgh, but he left in 2005 to focus on his writing. He has written over 60 books, including specialist academic titles including Forensic Aspects of Sleep and The Criminal Law of Botswana, short story collections including Portuguese Irregular Verbs, and children's books including The Perfect Hamburger. He is best known for the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. He also writes the Corduroy Mansions, Isabel Dalhousie and 44 Scotland Street series.
He has received numerous awards, including The Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library Award and the 2004 United Kingdom's Author of the Year Award. His book, The Full Cupboard of Life, received the Saga Award for Wit in the United Kingdom. In 2007, he received a CBE for his services in literature.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestseller Smith's seventh 44 Scotland Street novel (after 2012's The Importance of Being Seven) provides another genial, witty glimpse into the life and times of the denizens of an Edinburgh neighborhood. Seven-year-old Bertie Pollock gets top billing in the title, but all the usual characters figure in the book's many subplots, including Bertie's parents, Irene and Stuart; schoolmates Ranald and Olive; Elspeth Harmony, her husband, Matthew, and their newborn triplets; Domenica Macdonald (now affianced to Angus Lordie); and the proprietress of the local cafe, Big Lou. How will Elspeth and Matthew cope with triplets? Where will Domenica and Angus live? Can Big Lou find happiness through online dating? And on the farcical side, can Bertie orphan himself by auctioning off his parents on eBay? Smith writes soap operas, but for a thoughtful, literate audience interested in the inherent conflict between the moral virtue of civility and the personal desire for happiness. As Angus puts it, there are people who "led the examined life-who questioned themselves, who weighed up what to do, who developed and nurtured the self." They are philosophical but always human, and Smith's great gift is to render-and reconcile-that contradiction. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Eighty more bite-sized chapters bring curious readers up to date on the latest doings at 44 Scotland Street and its Edinburgh environs (The Importance of Being Seven, 2012, etc.). The headline event, painter Angus Lordie's upcoming wedding to Domenica Macdonald, is threatened on two fronts. First, Domenica wants Angus to give up his place, whose high ceilings make it perfect for his work, and move into 44 Scotland Street, where they can have ample horizontal room if they purchase the adjoining flat, which Domenica's friend Antonia Collie, who plans to take vows as a lay sister in Italy, wants to sell. Then, more dangerously, that same flat throws Domenica together with her old flame Magnus Campbell, and sparks fly between them. More prosaically, Domenica's neighbors Matthew and Elspeth Harmony, exhausted by caring for their new triplets, hire Matthew's ex-girlfriend Pat Macgregor to help at the Something Special Gallery and Anna, a Danish au pair, to help with little Rognvald, Tobermory and Fergus. Their friend Big Lou's online date turns out to be an Elvis impersonator. Overbearing Irene Pollock continues to make life miserable for her husband, Stuart, who affronts her by joining a Masonic lodge, and their son Bertie, the 6-year-old prodigy who's been force-fed yoga, Italian, psychotherapy and saxophone lessons. Bertie's friend Ranald Braveheart Macpherson persuades Bertie to put himself up for adoption on eBay and, when that falls through, to run away from home to an adoption agency in Glasgow, an adventure that produces perhaps the single most promising development since the series began six volumes ago. Even more lightweight and inconsequential than previous installments in its abrupt inflation and deflation of domestic dilemmas. Yet, the neighborhood's legion of fans will devour each chapter and be sorry when they've turned the last page.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Bertie is a six-and-a-half-year-old boy in Edinburgh who is so unhappy with his mother-driven schedule of yoga, Italian lessons, and a weekly visit to a psychotherapist that he puts himself up for adoption on eBay. He lives with his well-meaning but weak father and domineering mother in a well-appointed but loveless flat on Scotland Street. This upscale apartment building, the setting for McCall Smith's Scotland Street series, also houses a cultural anthropologist, soon to marry a portrait painter, and it used to hold the gels, ointments, mirrors, and wardrobe used by Bruce, the beyond-handsome narcissist who fascinates the art student Pat (McCall Smith says it's like a cobra fascinating a mouse). The prolific McCall Smith, who also produces the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series and the Corduroy Mansions series, writes the Scotland Street novels in serial form for The Scotsman, appearing daily several months a year. He moves from vignette to vignette within the flat and in greater Edinburgh, always moving his characters' fates forward bit by bit, meeting in the apartment house hallway by meeting at Big Lou's cafe or meeting at the wine bar. The plotlines, now spanning seven novels, are devilishly clever, but readers may well value even more McCall Smith's wit and his characters' conversations and reflections on happiness, loneliness, and love. Often droll, often touching, the Scotland Street stories are always delightful to read.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2010 Booklist