Saturday 28 July 2007

The Full Cupboard of Life



This is number five in Alexander McCall Smith's delightful series about Mma Ramotswe and her detective agency. I can't say that I read them for the crime element because, often as not, it's minimal. And, not being what you would call a crime reader anyway, that hardly matters to me if I'm completely honest. I love reading about Botswana (the travel book, Botswana Time, by Will Randall is excellent), the ways of its people and its history. All this and more you get from this series. But most of all I'm very enamoured of Mma Ramotswe herself, along with the rest of the regular characters, and love hearing of their daily lives and various philosophies on life. And the dry humour is wonderful, very much a feature of the books, imo. This fifth book is every bit as excellent as the others and as the series is being televised by the BBC later this year I want to finish them soon before I get to watch them on TV. I would also like to read his other two series but am not sure if they are as good. Only one way to find out I suppose...

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