Things I Like - Books

I’ve mentioned Alexander McCall Smith before, the author of the book series The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. In addition to this delightful series, he has written three other series for adults, academic texts (mostly related to law and medical law), armloads of children’s books and several short story collections. In all, McCall Smith has written more than 60 books, all but 5 of them published in the last 20 years. He’s a very busy guy.

His latest series, Corduroy Mansions is being published as an on-line novel. The first book was serialized last year – one chapter per day for 20 weeks at The Telegraph website. In addition, each chapter is read by Andrew Sachs (you can download the pod casts or listen to them on-line). It came out in book form this past year.

The second book in the series, “The Dog Who Came in From the Cold” started on the 21st of last month and the 34th chapter was published today. I’ve been unable to find the first series on line but you can read a summary of book one here.

The story takes place in a block of flats in Pimlico (an area of London) that have been nicknamed Corduroy Mansions by its residents. The flats are occupied by a group of interesting characters and a dog. The story isn’t great literature, but it is entertaining. As noted by the author:

"This is light social comedy, I suppose, but while I admit that the whole point of the exercise is for the reader to have fun, I hope in this story, nonetheless, to say something about how we live and about how finding love and meaning in the very small things of life may transform us, may make our ordinary lives more bearable."
~ Andrew McCall Smith

I just finished the second chapter of “The Dog Who Came in From the Cold” – so far, I’m entertained.