Showing results by author "Alexander McCall Smith" in Comedy & Humour

To the casual observer, the great enlightened city of Edinburgh, home of no-nonsense sermons and cream teas, might appear immune to the rollercoaster of strong emotions. But at 44 Scotland Street, as Matthew and Elspeth embark on the risky enterprise of married love, the raffish portrait painter Angus Lordie has a premonition of disaster. Soon enough Irene Pollock is shocked to learn that her small son Bertie harbours a highly unsuitable ambition; and Angus finds himself facing a large Glaswegian gangster.

Precious Ramotswe, that cheerful Botswanan private investigator of 'traditional build', is now married to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. The Agency is busy, but Mma Ramotswe cannot ignore the plea made by a woman who comes to her with a tale of particular misfortune. Unfortunately, her attempts to help are interrupted by a close encounter between her tiny white van and a bicycle.

From the creator of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency comes a medley of perverse couplings, casual dates and romantic encounters: hilarious tales that will sadden, inspire, and surprise. McCall Smith, a master of the unexpected and a seamless storyteller, revels in offering us the quirky complications inherent in the entanglements that human beings engineer for themselves - entanglements that can be shocking, unedifying, complex, and sometimes completely disastrous.

The complete BBC radio adaptations of Alexander McCall's bestselling series. Inspired by Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, 44 Scotland Street started life as a serial in The Scotsman. It was a huge hit, and was soon novelised, adapted on stage and dramatised for BBC Radio 4. Collected here are all five radio series, in which we follow the interconnected lives of the residents of adjoining flats in a tenement in Edinburgh's Georgian New Town.

Long-suffering child genius Bertie Pollock has much to contend with in the latest instalment of life at 44 Scotland Street, not least the birth of his brother Ulysses. Bertie had hoped that caring for a new baby would command all of his mother's attention, but he quickly sees that his dream of being left to his own devices is not destined to come true.

Following on from the brilliant The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Tears of the Giraffe charts the further adventures of Mma Ramotswe, Botswana's only female private detective. It's going to take all her intuition and eminent sensibility for Mma Ramotswe to crack her hardest case yet: the decade-old disappearance of an American on the edge of the Kalahari.

The third novel in the Portuguese Irregular Verbs trilogy sees von Igelfeld suffering the slings of academic intrigue as a visiting fellow at Cambridge, and the arrows of outrageous fortune in an eventful Columbian adventure. Between trips, von Igelfeld returns to his beloved Regensburg only that to discover while he has been away his murine colleagues have been at play.

In the sequel to Portuguese Irregular Verbs, our hero, Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, is the unlikely choice to address veterinarians in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas; is dogged by dachshunds; becomes embroiled with that notorious Coptic schismatic, the Duke of Johannesburg (and his victim the Patriarch of Alexandria); and finally ends up being mobbed as the star attraction on a Mediterranean cruise ship.

Alexander McCall Smith, best-selling author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, has turned his hand to humour. The delightful result is a creation of comic genius. For in the unnaturally tall form of Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, we are invited to meet a memorable character whose sublime insouciance is a blend of the cultivated pomposity of Frasier Crane and of Inspecteur Clouseau's hapless gaucherie.

Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld and his colleagues at the University of Regensburg's Institute of Romance Philology pride themselves on their unwavering commitment to intellectual excellence. They know it is their job to protect a certain civilised approach to the scholarly arts. So when a new deputy librarian, Dr Hilda Schreiber-Ziegler, threatens to drag them all down a path of progressive inclusivity, they are determined to stop her in the name of scholarship - even if that requires von Igelfeld to make the noble sacrifice of running for director of the Institute.

Life is so unfair, and it sends many things to try Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, in the proud Bavarian city of Regensburg. There is the undeserved rise of his rival (and owner of a one-legged dachshund), Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer; the interminable ramblings of the librarian, Herr Huber; and the condescension of his colleagues with regard to his unmarried state. But when his friend Ophelia Prinzel takes it upon herself to match-make, and duly produces a cheerful heiress with her own Schloss, it appears that the professor's true worth is about to be recognised.

Love Over Scotland is the third in this series and revolves around the many colourful characters that come and go at No. 44 Scotland Street. McCall Smith handles the characters with his customary charm and deftness: the stalwart Tory chartered surveyor, the pushy mother and, most importantly in this novel, the Italian-speaking prodigy, Bertie.

When his loving wife, Betty, plans a trip to Ireland for Fatty O’Leary’s 40th birthday things go wrong almost immediately: the seats in economy class on the plane are too small; Irish bathroom furniture is not as commodious as he'd have liked. And all the time Fatty must put up with the unthinking cruelty of strangers.

Alexander McCall Smith is a storyteller par excellence and the master of the serial novel form. Not content with the runaway success of the 44 Scotland Street novels he has established a second series, Corduroy Mansions, of which The Dog Who Came in from the Cold is the second volume. McCall Smith treats his characters as old friends, dropping in for a chat with them and to see what they’re up to.