Alexander McCall Smith

"From the beloved author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series comes a delightful compendium of very short fiction and comics that celebrate the joy and absurdity of the human experience. It is often said that the best things in life come in smallpackages--anyone in search of proof need look no further than the stories in this collection: brief, utterly engaging tales that offer lasting surprise and delight. From the original Greek financial...

"From one of our most beloved and best-selling authors: a hilarious new stand-alone novel about one man's misadventures in travel and romance in the Italian countryside. When writer Paul Stewart heads to the idyllic Italian town of Montalcino to finish his already overdue cookbook, he expects it to be the perfect escape from stressful city life. But when he arrives, things quickly take a turn for the worse. His hired car is nowhere to be found, and...

As the temperature rises in Gaborone, Precious Ramotswe, founder of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, wonders whether the heat could be the reason that business is particularly slow. But then a distant cousin of Mma Ramotswe's comes to the agency with a plea for help and the ladies decide to pursue the issue together. Armed with Mma Ramotswe's circumspection and Mma Makutsi's sharp eye, they proceed with confidence and open hearts. What, after all,...

"Summer has come to Scotland Street. The long days have prompted its denizens to engage in flights of fancy. Some, like the Duke of Johannesburg's plan to create a microlite seaplane, are literal flights, and some, like the vain Bruce Anderson's idea of settling down with one of his many admirers, are more metaphorical. With the domineering Irene off pursuing academic challenges, Stuart and Bertie are free to indulge in summer fun. Stuart reconnects...

Isabel and her fiancé know who they are and where they come from. But not everybody is so fortunate. Jane Cooper, a visiting Australian philosopher on sabbatical in Edinburgh, has more questions than answers. Adopted at birth, Jane is trying to find her biological father, but all she knows about him is that he was a student in Edinburgh years ago. When she asks for Isabel's help in this seemingly impossible search ... well, of course Isabel obliges....

Isabel's son, Charlie, is now of an age, eighteen months, to have a social life, and so off they go to a birthday party, where, much to Isabel's surprise, she finds Minty Auchterlonie, the high-flying financier she first encountered in The Sunday Philosophy Club. Minty had seemed to Isabel a woman of ruthless ambition, but the question of her integrity had never truly been answered. Now, when Minty takes Isabel into her confidence about the complicated...

"Precious Ramotswe learns valuable lessons about first impressions and forgiveness in this latest installment of the beloved and best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi are approached by their part-time colleague, Mr. Polopetsi, with a troubling story: a woman, accused of being rude to a valued customer, has been wrongly dismissed from her job at an office furniture store. Never one to let an act of injustice...

Traveling to northern Botswana where they are impressed by the natural beauty of the Okavango Delta, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi visit a safari lodge where they encounter discontented locals and struggle with untimely wedding issues.

"It's back to Corduroy Mansions--the slightly dilapidated but well-lived-in mansion block in London's hip Pimlico neighborhood--for the third installment in Alexander McCall Smith's newest popular series. There's never a dull moment for the residents of Corduroy Mansions: Berthea Snark is still at work on her scathing biography of the only loathsome Liberal Democrat member of Parliament--her own son, Oedipus; literary agents Rupert Porter and Barbara...

Welcome to the insane and rarified world of Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld of the Institute of Romance Philology. Von Igelfeld is engaged in a never-ending quest to win the respect he feels certain he is due—a quest which has the tendency to go hilariously astray.
 
In Unusual Uses for Olive Oil, von Igelfeld experiences a series of new adventures.  First, he finds that his academic rival Detlev-Amadeus...