| 44 Scotland Street | 
 enlarge | Author: Alexander Mccall Smith
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $0.01
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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
Condition: Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy!
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| Customer Reviews:
 44 Scotland Street December 19, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have been listening to this book on Books-On-Tape, after loving
other Alexander McCall books in this format. I love this book.
It reminds me of reading Jane Austen, in that it is a morality play
about people's characters. Like Austen, McCall-Smith
draws some of the protagonists as caricatures based on
their failings of character or their absurdity. But also like
Austen, some of the protagonists are drawn with deep love and respect,
even though they may have character flaws. The whole plot really
centers around the character assets and flaws of one main protagonist,
a young, rather lost woman in modern-day Edinburgh. What a great
commentary on the foibles of modern-day Scottish society ! But get it
in book form rather than on tape, so you can savor it better.
 The editor should be fired December 5, 2005
8 out of 14 found this review helpful
I was very disappointed with this book. I had read The Number One Ladies Detective Agency and was looking forward to another exceptional read. What a disappointment! Many of the characters are dull and some of the promising ones introduced were not developed. Other plotlines were not developed (e.g., Did Todd's daughter find the man she saw on the escalator?).
My main complaint, however, is the poor ending. As mentioned by another customer reviewer, it just ends.
Maybe the author had to meet his deadline, but any editor knows that it's poor writing form to put a sympathetic character in an unpleasant predicament and end the book without resolution, leaving the reader wondering "what happened to --------?"
If the plan is to print a sequel I will certainly skip it. If I hadn't read the The Number One Ladies Detective Agency I would skip all the books by this author.
One of the funniest books I have ever read December 5, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Anyone who does not like this book does not appreciate British or Scottish humor. I am sure that much of it may have passed me by because I am not familiar with some of the stores and places mentioned. On the other hand, this in no way hampered my fascination with it. The laughs keep coming, much from very subtle and entertaining facets of character. The character sketches here rival those of Charles Dickens - and it was written to be serialized in a newspaper, too. It is difficult to understand that this book has not been recognized as the classic it is: too funny for words (and yet that is all that it is.)
 It did come highly recommended... November 28, 2005
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is the first AMS book I have read. Despite not having that "oh, what a great book!" feeling after reading it, I feel it would be a disservice to an obviously smart writer for this to be the last book of his I read. I loved the style and dry sense of humor, and I loved the idea of it being written in bits and pieces for a daily paper, and I liked most of the parts of the book that weren't proprietary Scotland...but for the parts that were (and there were many) I was completely lost. Maybe I won't be as lost after I visit Scotland in June, but for right now, I felt a total outsider (and maybe that was the point) as I read. I will now go read "#1 Ladies Detective Agency," and perhaps Mr. Smith will redeem himself.
 Did Mr McCall Smith have an urgent bill to pay? November 12, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I've only just found out this was written as a newspaper serial. It now makes some sense. My initial impression was that it was dashed off to pay for a new sofa/yacht/Renoir for Mr McCall Smith, who had a weekend spare to knock it out. Knowing it's a newspaper serial it's more likely he cranked out each day's instalment while he had his morning coffee/tea/whatever.
A handful of interesting, but only two-and-a-bit dimensional, characters do stuff. Some of this stuff has consequences - which you will predict with uncanny accuracy.
There are some nicely-drawn scenes, and you get a slight sense of living in Edinburgh (well, part of Edinburgh). But basically sod-all of any interest occurs. And then it just stops.
This is the first book I've read of his - having heard people rave about the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. I don't really feel like reading any more.
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