Just finished Alexander McCall Smith's "2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom" a collection of stories about Dr Marie Moritz von Igelfeld, Professor of Romance languages. Very amusing and enjoyable and an ideal antidote to another book I have recently read. Back in February, I went with my Book Club to a talk at Winchester Guildhall by McCall Smith, and he was very funny, especially on the subject of this book. The audience had a good laugh at von Igelfeld's expense.
The other title I had read by A M S was his most recent, The Forever Girl. Set in the expatriate community of financial wheeler-dealers in the Caicos Islands in the Caribbean, I had found this on the shelves of my local library only a few weeks after its publication earlier this year. The atmosphere of the small community of Europeans working away from their home, going to the tennis club, the yacht club and generally finding ways to entertain themselves on a small tropical island with little in the way of sophisticated life is depicted very well. The relationship of Clover and James as children is tenderly done, but when Clover, as she decided to call herself aged four eventually goes to the same Edinburgh University as James, yet doesn't see him or encourage him in any way, I felt I wanted to shake her. This was an OK but not too gripping read.
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