McCall Smith, Alexander "Espresso Tales" and "Love Over Scotland"

McCall Smith, Alexander "Espresso Tales" (44 Scotland Street #2) - 2005

This book is the reason why I started another series by Alexander McCall Smith. I found it on one of those book swapping shelves. And since I liked "The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency" Series, I thought, why not. I bought the first and third book in the series ("44 Scotland Street" and "Love Over Scotland").

Some parts are really silly and definitely exaggerated but he always makes me smile. His books are definitely on the lighter side of my reading but they are nice night-time stories to read in-between.
And I can get upset about some people and their behaviour. There is this mother of a five-year-old who treats him like a baby girl, no football, no rough play, pink walls in his bedroom, pink dungarees, no, excuse meeeee, crushed strawberry dungarees. LOL She even takes him to a psychiatrist but if you ask me, it's her who is in desperate need of one.

And then there is Pat, a nice girl but without a goal, who shares a flat with Bruce, a narcistic macho and that's the best I can say about him.

So, a nice little story about neighbours and friends.

From the back cover:

"In Espresso Tales, Alexander McCall Smith returns home to Edinburgh and the glorious cast of his own tales of the city, the residents of 44 Scotland Street, with a new set of challenges for each one of them.

Bruce, the intolerably vain and perpetually deluded ex-surveyor, is about to embark on a new career as a wine merchant, while his long-suffering flatmate Pat MacGregor, set up by matchmaking Domenica Macdonald, finds herself invited to a nudist picnic in Moray Place in the pursuit of true love. Prodigious six-year-old Bertie Pollock wants a boy's life of fishing and rugby, not yoga and pink dungarees, and he plots rebellion against his bossy, crusading mother Irene and his psychotherapist Dr Fairbairn.

But when Bertie's longed-for trip to Glasgow with his ineffectual father Stuart ends with Bertie taking money off legendary Glasgow hard man Lard O'Connor at cards, it looks as though Bertie should have been more careful what he wished for. And all the time it appears that both Irene Pollock and Dr Fairbairn are engaged in a struggle with dark secrets and unconscious urges of their own."

McCall Smith, Alexander "Love Over Scotland" (44 Scotland Street #3) - 2006

"Love Over Scotland" picks up where "Espresso Tales" leave off. We hear more about Bertie, the five-year old and his awful mother, a neighbour of Pat goes to meet some pirates in South-East Asia, there are other small and big problems with the people in the book but I think this is it for the series. There are more books that carry on the tales of our Scottish friends but I think I'll give them a miss. If you love light reading, you will probably love it, Alexander McCall Smith has a good way of describing people.

From the back cover:

"With his characteristic warmth, inventiveness and brilliant wit, Alexander McCall Smith gives us more of the gloriously entertaining comings and goings at 44 Scotland Street, the Edinburgh townhouse.
Six-year-old prodigy Bertie perseveres in his heroic struggle for truth and balanced good sense against his insufferable mother and her crony, the psychotherapist Dr Fairbairn. Domenica sets off on an anthropological odyssey with pirates in the Malacca Straits, while Pat attracts several handsome admirers, including a toothsome suitor named Wolf. And Big Lou, eternal source of coffee and good advice to her friends, has love, heartbreak and erstwhile boyfriend Eddie's misdemeanours on her own mind."

These are the other books in the series "44 Scotland Street":
2007: The World According to Bertie (Tür an Tür in der 44 Scotland Street)
2008: The Unbearable Lightness of Scones
2010: The Importance of Being Seven
2011: Bertie Plays The Blues
2012: Sunshine on Scotland Street
2013: Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers
2015: The Revolving Door of Life
2016: The Bertie Project
2017: A Time of Love and Tartan
2019: The Peppermint Tea Chronicles
2020: A Promise of Ankles