Posts Tagged ‘philosophy’

Book Friends

Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

I have enjoyed spending time with two new literary friends this summer. I met both of them in books written by Alexander McCall Smith, a Scottish author. He creates comfortable women characters with charm, poise, and pizzazz.

Precious Ramotswe is the proprietor of The No. 1 Detective Agency inBotswana,Africa. This traditionally built woman is not called upon to find murderers, although she does sometimes identify thieves. Her main occupation is directed toward helping people solve everyday problems in life with compassion and confidentiality. Throughout the thirteen books published in the series so far, Mma Ramotswe marries Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, owner of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, and some books later, her assistant Grace Makutsi marries Phuti Radiphuti, manager and heir of Double Comfort Furniture Store. Other delightful characters, all with distinctive personality quirks, also appear throughout the series.

Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher in Edinburgh, Scotland. A wealthy woman in her early forties, she is the editor of The Review of Applied Ethics and feels a strong moral obligation to help others. Some think that she is a bit too nosy, but she is attentive to small details and a good sleuth. She lives intensely and passionately as her thoughts reveal her rich internal life. In the succession of the eight books in the series, she gives birth to a son. She and the father, a younger man, contemplate the appropriate time and place for a wedding ceremony through the next several books.

As I have been reading books in these two series, I have enjoyed visiting with the characters and I look forward to their continuing adventures.