Alexander McCall Smith - Anyone familiar with his books?

[fadedrose]

I've been thinking about going more into sewing (while some of my fingers still work), fall yard work, and reading less...

But every time I decide that this is my last bunch from the library, I get curious about another author. In the Amazon reviews (25 Five-Star) of Killed at the Whim of a Hat, by Colin Cotterill, he is compared to McCall Smith by some.

All his stuff is listed here, and I don't know where to start, or if I want to start at all (am still working on Beaton's books).

Ever since I read Stieg Larsson's books, I've become a real aficionado of books written by foreign authors about foreign countries.

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/M_Authors/McCall-Smith_Alexander.html

Thanks...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Smith's books are more like Beaton's than like Cotterill's

In fact, I am mystified by the comparisons to Colin Cotterill, whose books are darker with the ever-present threat of political disgrace in 1970s Laos.

Smith's Botswana books (No. #1 Ladies' Detective Agency and others) are sunny, mildly humorous, and G-rated (or at the most, PG-rated). I recommended them for my mother, who disliked anything that had explicit sex or violence. I never would have given her a Cotterill book.

Smith's other books take place in Edinburgh, but I've read only one of them.

[fadedrose]

3. Some describe Cotterill's as dark humor

To me his writing is innocently dirty....not arousing the way most sexual references tend to be.

I love Cotterill. I know you are one who recommended him, but someone else did too. We were talking about another book in a thread and somebody started talking about a shaman and an elephant, and it made me curious and I tried him. It's been a love affair. Can't remember who it was that posted about that shaman.

Cotterill sure has a love for the language we speak and people of all nationalities, looks, sexual and political persuasions, physical disabilities..anyone can feel welcome reading his stuff..

Oh, and animals. He loves them too....and superstitious people and their beliefs..

I will try McCall Smith. Have put 3 books in my "request soon" list - the newest series.

[fadedrose]

9. Beaton's books are not like McCall's...

Agatha Raisin is not the heroine you'd find in a McCall book. She is not perfect, either in appearance or behavior. Her love life is a disaster, and everything Beaton gives her, she takes away in the next book.

Agatha is one of the best-developed complicated characters I've met in any book. With all her faults, I like her. She's brash, but human and frail, all at the same time. She develops over time. You need to read a bunch to appreciate her.

And Hamish Macbeth - we all wait for him to marry his longest-lasting love, and Beaton will not hear of it. We get teased in every book about their relationship. Nothing sugary about the other characters either.

There is more sentimentality in the Cotterill books. He always has everything turn out all right at the end, and the characters are devoted to each other. I love him and his books and their characters.

[fadedrose]

10. Forgot to add, I agree with you

When they compared McCall to Cotterill, I was and am flabbergasted.. While Dr. Siri is a wonderful character, there is nothing artificial about him, and even with a 2000-year old spirit residing within him, he seems quite natural. I love him and his nurse, his wife, and his assistant dearly. They are "sweet," but never never to the point of nausea....

I think you are the one who recommended this author and a few others to me, and I appreciate them all...

[getting old in mke]

2. The Mma Ramotswe series

are gentle and pleasant. Sounds a bit like damning with faint praise, but I've enjoyed them and love the audio readings with Lisette Lescaux. Even the ones I've read in Book 1.0 have had her voice going in my head.

Of course, I hear her voice when I'm reading Michael Stanley's Detective Kubu books because they're also set in Botswana, and that is way, way less appropriate because the duo-using-the-psuedonym is far from gentle.

[fadedrose]

4. I had to look up Michael Stanley in Fantastic Fiction

cause I didn't know what you were talking about - that duo thingy.

Sounds interesting and I think I'd like to try the first 2 in the series which are hardbacks, but the third is a pocketbook. Makes my hand scrunch too much too long.

The McCall Smith ones I decided to try first are Corduroy Mansions because there are only three.

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/M_Authors/McCall-Smith_Alexander.html

For anyone else who's as confused as me:

Michael Stanley is the writing team of native Africans Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. The two friends have had many adventures together, including tracking lions at night, fighting bush fires on the Savuti plains in northern Botswana, surviving a charging elephant, and losing their navigation maps while flying over the Kalahari. Sears lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. Stanley divides his time between South Africa and Minneapolis, MN.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/michael-stanley/

Oh, thank you....

[classof56]

5. Ah, yes, I love the Mma Ramotswe books, and the readings by Lisette...wonderful!

Brings Mma to life, and Mma's adventures are lovely excursions into her world and culture. I like how Smith ends each novel with the phrase "Africa Africa Africa..." in such a stylish way. Highly recommended!

[fadedrose]

11. Just ordered the first two Det. Kubu books...

My library has the 3rd only in CD, but if I like the first two, will go for a loan..

[SheilaT]

6. I have not been able to get into his books, although they are wildly popular

and many people highly recommend them.

I am somewhat inclined to agree that many of the best stuff being written out there is not being written by Americans, with all due respect to my fellow countrymen-writers.

I have been finding lately that the Canadians are writing some of the very best stuff out there. If you like science fiction, please look at Robert Charles Wilson and Robert Sawyer. If you prefer mainstream stuff, please look at Andrew Pyper. His novel "Lost Girls" is simply one of the best I have ever read. There's a lyrical quality to the writing that is beyond amazing.

[Retrograde]

7. I've tried books from three of his series

the first was Portuguese Irregular Verbs, which, if someone told me it had been written in the 1930s, I'd have shrugged off as one of those mildly ethnophobic British novels of the time. As it wasn't, I was annoyed with the smirking xenophobia directed towards characters straight out of 5th rate Wodehouse.

The second was one of the Botswana books, which wasn't bad - although I have little knowledge of the country. It was actually a recorded book, and I liked the way the narrator pronounced both m's in Mma

The third was the first of the Dalhousie series. I swear the supposed murder victim killed himself just so he could get out of the book.

I find him twee. Apparently a lot of people disagree.

[fadedrose]

8. I had to look up the word "twee"

and found it should have been in my vocab long time ago - thanks. Yes, that's McCall.

I read the The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, and didn't hate it, but didn't really like it either. The next I read was Corduroy Mansions and it was so bad that I'm still angry with McCall for having written it, and when I posted that, "getting old in mke" agreed that he didn't care for it either. (Sep. 9 reading list).

I have Tears of the Giraffe but am returning it to the library without reading it. McCall is too twee for a cynical old bag like me , which is odd because I like stories that are a bit heartwarming.

But why is the man so popular? I can't figure ....