Product Description

"The World According to Bertie" is the fourth in the 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 beleaguered Italian-speaking prodigy, Bertie. This is classic McCall Smith - clever, witty and entertaining - and beautifully illustrated. A chance encounter with Armistead Maupin in San Francisco inspired Alexander McCall Smith to write this series of novels based around the fictional No. 44 Scotland Street in Edinburgh's New Town.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38074 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

About the Author
Alexander McCall Smith was born in what is now Zimbabwe and taught law at the University of Botswana. He is now Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. He has written more than fifty books, including a number of specialist titles, but is best known for The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, which has achieved best-seller status on four continents. In 2004 he was awarded British Book Awards Author of the Year & Booksellers Association Author of the Year.

Customer Reviews

an absolute delight
The 44 Scotland Street series is just perfection..somehow the books manage to be very funny and insightful, as well as quite calming. This latest installment does not disappointment, and quite rightly the focus is now on Bertie, who is still being smothered by his awful mother. If you haven't read them yet, go and get the first one, and work your way through - the books are wonderful.

The Master Returns
Bertie is back, with all the usual crowd and a pawbiting Cyril the gold toothed canine anti-hero plot to boot.
Sandy McCall Smith although best known for his 1st Ladies Dective Agency series, always hits the spot with 44 Scotland Street.
If you live in Edinburgh, you will recognise many of the places and probably some of the characters.
For those who don't know is that the books are first serialised in the "Scotsman Newspaper" similar to Dickens and The Times and then collated into an exellent volumes, amply illustrated by Iain McIntosh.
Roll on the next volume,if you have not read any of the earlier volumes go and buy them, pull up a comfy chair, some single malt and lose yourself to some quality plots,then when you have read them, go out and buy the Isobel Dalhousie trilogy, you will thank me for telling you

Great fun!
Another delightful volume of sketches from the lives of the inhabitants, past and present, of 44 Scotland Street, Edinburgh. The stories have a fair dash of local colour which is understandable given that the chapters were serialised in the Scotsman, but that should not put-off readers from Kidderminster or Kathmandu as the characters and storylines are pretty universal. All the usual suspects are here - indecisive Matthew; outrageous Angus; put-upon Big Lou; bullying Bruce; poor six year old Bertie, whose every waking minute is organised by his overbearing mother - and more.

Great story-telling - very amusing, occasionally acerbic but never unkind. A good, uplifting read. How does he do it?