• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Alexander McCall Smith: The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency

Kaz

Kaz

New Member
Anybody had read this book? I have read it. It was really enjoyable. I'll buy more series.
 
I've read it and enjoyed it quite a bit, as well.

Question for you:
Remember the part where someone was hanging around Precious' house....what happened with that? I didn't know if it had something to do with the story or was just some random occurance. And why was her neighbor watching her house that one night? Seemed shady to me.
 
I don't remember that bit. I read it a while ago but I've just read Tears of the Giraffe and I recommend that if you liked the first one. Apparently a TV series is being made. Mma Ramotswe is the kind of person I'd like to meet one day. She's got so much common sense and holds on to her values.
 
I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention it again. #1 LDA is like Nancy Drew on Morphine. :D

I do, however, think it would be good as a TV series shown on a lazy Saturday afternoon along with Cagney and Lacey and Monk on BBC2.

Mxx
 
It's certainly not in the line of Jeffrey Deaver et al, and I think that's what is supposed to make it so enjoyable. It's an easy-going and inoffensive read. Perfect book for holiday reading I suppose.

What's wrong with Monk anyway?!! ;)
 
I love them. I've read them up to and including The Kalahari Typing School For Men, and I'll continue to read them as long as McCall Smith keeps pumping them out. And he really is going at speed. As soon as I buy one, there's another two pop up. It's like he's a hydra or something. Not that I'm complaining.

The tv show, when they finally make it, should be something special. These books just scream out to be filmed. I just don't see how they could go wrong from such perfect starting material.

I just love the way nothing really happens. They have a case, it doesn't turn out to be as terrible as everyone was thinking, or else it turns out to be something incredibly mundane. Precious shames or tricks everyone into doing the right thing and then loads her traditionally built frame into her little van and goes back to Speedy Motors to have a go at the apprentices for her afternoon's entertainment, and then settle down with a nice cup of bush tea.

She has to be the rational person you could ever hope to meet. She'd make a fantastic agony aunt too, I reckon. They'd have to double her column space to include all her asides where she tells us how great Botswana is though.
 
I think the book is perfect just for a short respite from "normal" life. Certainly not one that's gonna be a classic or be held up as example of marvelous literature, but good for a lazy afternoon.

Not keen on a television show, but then again, I don't watch television. I hate when people attempt to make mini-series/movies out of books, because they usually screw them up. Plus, I have my own images of what things are like in my head, I don't need someone else's creation messing with my own.
 
Litany said:
I love them. I've read them up to and including The Kalahari Typing School For Men, and I'll continue to read them as long as McCall Smith keeps pumping them out. And he really is going at speed. As soon as I buy one, there's another two pop up. It's like he's a hydra or something. Not that I'm complaining.

The tv show, when they finally make it, should be something special. These books just scream out to be filmed. I just don't see how they could go wrong from such perfect starting material.

I just love the way nothing really happens. They have a case, it doesn't turn out to be as terrible as everyone was thinking, or else it turns out to be something incredibly mundane. Precious shames or tricks everyone into doing the right thing and then loads her traditionally built frame into her little van and goes back to Speedy Motors to have a go at the apprentices for her afternoon's entertainment, and then settle down with a nice cup of bush tea.

She has to be the rational person you could ever hope to meet. She'd make a fantastic agony aunt too, I reckon. They'd have to double her column space to include all her asides where she tells us how great Botswana is though.
Click to expand...

I agree with you. That's why I'll buy 2nd and 3rd book this friday. It is really easy to read. I feel Precious is friendly and welcome person. I love her little white van and it got me worried cos this van really obvious to anybody. Should be dark van which help nobody notices it.

I rather have books and than watching Tv because it wouldn't same in the book.
 
I just finished The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith, which was a great book!! Warm, funny, clever, and a very easy read. The characters are all very quirky and likable, especially the central character.

Very recommended.

Phil
 
Does anything actually happen in this book? I'm about sixty pages into it and all I've had is a whack of exposition. It feels like a collection of tiny incidents strung together with no main thread running down the middle. I'm not too sure about the author's voice, either; it doesn't feel African, whatever that means.
 
Stewart said:
Does anything actually happen in this book?
Click to expand...
Pretty much no. That, was exactly what I liked about this book. I thought it was totally unserious, fun, easy and interesting. I wouldn't put it at the top of the "best books ever written" pile, but that doesn't mean it isn't easy to enjoy.

I'm not too sure about the author's voice, either; it doesn't feel African, whatever that means.
Click to expand...

Don't know what to tell you about that. Perhaps it's the years he spent living in Scotland, but the author is African. We know you love wikipedia, so here's his entry. ;)
 
mehastings said:
Pretty much no. That, was exactly what I liked about this book.
Click to expand...

Ah, then....Grrrrrr!

Coming off the back of Julian Barnes' Flaubert's Parrot in which nothing happened...at all. No events, no changes, etc. I thought this would be something quick to get out of the way.

Don't know what to tell you about that. Perhaps it's the years he spent living in Scotland, but the author is African.
Click to expand...

I know. Perhaps that's what it is that I don't find convincing about the voice: it seems colonial rather than authentic.
 
I love the books! When I read them, I feel calm, and they have an old-fashioned, commonsense feel to them. Very basic plots, uplifting and sometimes funny. This may not sound like an enthusiastic recommendation, but I'm enthusiastic about them. They're nice for when I want a break from heavy plots, shoot-'em-ups, and gore. They make me think about how nice life can be without a lot of modern conveniences.
 
Miss Shelf said:
They're nice for when I want a break from heavy plots, shoot-'em-ups, and gore. They make me think about how nice life can be without a lot of modern conveniences.
Click to expand...

Exactly! I feel the same way.
 
Well, I finished it last night. I might write a review of it at the weekend when I have more time.

I gave it three stars out of five: average. It just felt like a novella with a fair amount of padding. I was initially expecting a detective story, which it wasn't, so I was a little disappointed by that but, as I read on, I decided that it wasn't about the crime or the main character but about the agency itself. So, with that in mind, I was hoping to see an evolution in the story of this detective agency. It didn't evolve; there was no real feeling around it. It just made money and the woman, Mma Ramotswe, would just go out, do something, get paid over and over. There was no conflict - she just got the company started and hey ho! off we go without encountering any problems. Hell, even the ending where Ramotswe threatens the woman with the police doesn't create any conflict; she just hands the missing boy over. It seems McCall Smith's world is informed by the power of deus ex machina.

The setting was nice, although I failed to visualise it wholly in my head. And the dialogue seemed a tad wooden. Ramotswe was okay as a character, certain individual quirks (like not wanting people to go the police) and manipulating her subjects in order to "solve" a case, but to go on and on about how she would never marry again and then accept a proposal at the end was certainly forced and out of character.
 
I have read them all so far.

Usually I turn to them when life is a bit hectic and I need something light and gentle.

I also like to read them on a plane as I find it hard to concentrate and these are very easy to drift from and come back a few minutes later.

I love them for their simplicity and they certainly have a place on my bookshelf. :)
 
Cripes, Stewart, they do things differently there, they talk differently there, and they have different values. Mma Ramotswe does what she thinks is right, whether or not there's anything in it for her. So what if the characters don't indulge in the navel-gazing and money-grubbing that Westerners tend to do-I don't think that lessens the impact of the books at all. It's refreshing to read a book about people who find out what they like to do and make a living from it, regardless of whether it's making them rich.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top