| 44 Scotland Street | 
 enlarge | Author: Alexander Mccall Smith
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  67 reviews
Sales Rank: 6693
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 1400079446
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781400079445
ASIN: 1400079446
Publication Date: June 14, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Wonderful Read August 3, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
44 Scotland Street was a departure from his other series, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. The characters are more "sophisticated", many of them. The surprising laughter this book evokes was not contrived, though. The story takes place in the mid to upper middle class neighborhood of Scotland Street.
There is sadness, as well as compassion from the reader, when Bertie begins to rebel agains his controlling mother. He is a five year old genius, so perhaps he'll develop the courge he'll need to outsmart his dominaring parent.
Matthew, the out-of-place director of an art gallery: his total lack of knowledge of art, and just sort of flubbing his way through his life's work, is so endearing. We feel he'll be okay after all.
Bruce's pathetic narcisism: his disconnection with others because of his self-love will leave him alone but never lonely.
There is Dominique, wise, but still vunerable.
And Pat: newly integrated into the neighborhood. She's young, naive, but not unintelligent.
And Angus Lordie's sophistication and wit in all situations, lends a balance to the other characters.
I loved the book.
 A Huge Disappointment! July 13, 2005
12 out of 18 found this review helpful
I thoroughly enjoyed Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith and couldn't wait to read his latest effort, 44, Scotland Street.
However, I did not enjoy Scotland Street at all! It meandered along and raised issues that seemed irrelevant or were never resolved.
I found the characters uninteresting, the story never seemed to develop any sense of direction and towards the end I tired of all the self indulgent waffle and found myself speed reading and skipping huge chunks of text in a mad dash to reach the last page.
I know he has a loyal readership so he must appeal to someone, but no more Alexander McCall Smith for me, thank you!
21st Century Dickens in Edinburgh July 12, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Alexander McCall Smith has helped recreate the daily serialized newspaper-published novel with 44 Scotland Street. In 110 tasty snippets, he introduces vast numbers of memorable characters, expands the action, provides 109 cliff hangers and deliciously complicates the plot. With a spare style and a twinkle in his eye, the author gives us plenty to chuckle about in unveiling the pretensions of the self-congratulatory urbanized upper crust.
Pat is taking a second year off from her college studies. The first year off didn't work quite as she had hoped. Pat is delighted to find a flat she can share with the handsome, if self-absorbed, Bruce, and two perpetually missing flat mates. She quickly finds a job working in an art gallery where the owner, Chris, knows even less about what he's doing than she does. On the same floor in her building is a delightful older woman, Domenica, who knows where all the bodies are buried. Through the walls, Pat can hear little Bertie practicing his saxophone for his mother, Irene . . . who's obsessed with having her son become a civilized genius. Bertie has other ideas.
The cast of characters is soon off on a mad-cap scramble through life whose continuing plot thread is a painting that just might be valuable . . . if only someone can figure out who painted it . . . and where it is. Along the way, lust rears its powerful chemistry and Pat learns to tell the good guys from the bad.
The story reminded me very much of the best of Maeve Binchy's novels about modern Dublin. 44 Scotland Street has the advantage over Ms. Binchy because Alexander McCall Smith is able to deftly develop his story so rapidly with sure visual pictures while bringing out the humor . . . rather than the painful melodrama . . . in everyday living.
I found myself roaring with laughter throughout the book. There's lots of use of psychiatry to develop the humor. I thought that the scenes with Irene and Bertie's analyst were irresitible! I didn't know that you could have so much fun while sober in Scotland.
A Taste Of Scotland June 30, 2005
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
In this book, Alexander McCall Smith uses a somewhat different style than that which his reader's are accustomed. This result is because the story was written as a serialized story in "The Scotsman" a daily newspaper.
Each chapter is about the same size, the size of a normal 2 columns in a newspaper, and Smith recognizes, that when writing a serialized story, there is a slight difference in method that must be applied. Since there is only one day's worth of material in each segment, McCall realizes that he must make something happen in terms of plot development in every segment.
He does this with great aplomb. And while Smith indicates that he is illustrating typical Scotland Archetypal personalities, it often seems to the reader, that the personalities are familiar. In fact, the personality types McCall Smith finds in Scotland seem the same as those in London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles or Tokyo. Personality types seem to be as universal as good and evil.
Once more, Smith creates a story that will capture the imagination, and keep the reader interested. This book is recommended for all readers of McCall Smith and any person who has ever been to or has an interest in going to Edinburgh, Scotland.
A paean full of wry social commentary and endearing characters June 24, 2005
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
44 SCOTLAND STREET first appeared in serialization ala Charles Dickens in 110 daily installments in The Scotsman newspaper. Not a book in the ordinary sense of the word, it also is not a mystery, which is what we have become accustomed to expect from Alexander McCall Smith, creator of Mma Ramotswe in THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY series. There is a wee puzzler involving a painting in the art gallery where our heroine, Pat, works. Is it or is it not an undiscovered painting by eighteenth century painter Samuel Peploe? And if it is, how should one go about retrieving it from a charity boutique where it mistakenly found its way through somewhat complicated means? This minor plot leads us to the cast of characters with whom Pat lives, works and socializes as she flies from the family nest to move into the titled address.
On the landing at 44 Scotland Street lives the widowed and widely traveled Domenica, who befriends Pat and fills her in on the rest of the residents: the stunningly handsome but callow Bruce, Pat's flat mate, who is convinced he is the world's most charming and desirable male, and the strange family largely run by the precocious five-year-old Bertie, whose mother is determined to turn him into a child prodigy.
With three successful mystery series under his belt, McCall Smith seems to draw from a bottomless well of quirky, wise and philosophical characters to delight his fans. He has charmed us with THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY series and its protagonist, Precious Ramotswe; confounded us with his redoubtable Professor Dr. Von Igelfeld in the PORTUGUESE IRREGULAR VERBS mysteries; and introduced us to the Scottish-American philosopher Isabel Dalhousie in THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB.
McCall Smith's love of place underlies his tales of mystery and moral dilemmas in each of his stories. A deep and abiding love of Africa and its culture bring to life not only the characters but also the unique problems of an emerging third world country, served in an appetizing dish of humor, wisdom and mystique. His adopted yet nearly native country of Scotland is equally treated to insights and purely Scottish ways in the other two series.
44 SCOTLAND STREET is a paean, with tongue in cheek to Edinburgh society --- high, middle and low. McCall Smith clearly loves the extraordinary city and its slightly stuffy denizens, but you don't need a guidebook or a Scotts burr to enjoy his wry social comments and endearing characters.
--- Reviewed by Roz Shea
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