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Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Perpetually Six, Bertie Shows More Maturity Than the Adults
Please, if you haven't read any of the novels in the 44 Scotland Street series, you should immediately go order and read 44 Scotland Street and then move on to Espresso Tales and Love Over Scotland before reading The World According to Bertie. Before making that decision, let me explain a little about the series. It began as a serial novel in The Scotsman newspaper. As a result, the writing is broken up into little vignettes that are loosely tied to each other by the relations the characters have with... more info
"Bertie wanted...to be the average boy, but he knew that this would forever be beyond his reach--[because of] his mother." (4.5 stars) Alexander McCall Smith always succeeds in charming his readers with warm and humorous tales of almost normal life, lived by people who care about each other and share the values that make life worth living. Like the other novels in this series, the "plot" here consists of episodes in the lives of several loosely connected characters from 44 Scotland Street as they face separate problems in their everyday lives. In real life, real people live their own lives and deal with their own problems, and... more info
Wonderful book - buy the series and enjoy This is a delightful book. Alexander McCall Smiths writing is wonderfully observant and you feel that he genuinely cares about his characters. If you are familiar with the No 1 ladies detective series novels and enjoy his writing and obvious love for Botwswana, then you will enjoy his thoughts on his home town of Edinburgh and the superb characters he has created. Start at the first novel 44 Scotland street and work forward to the latest. The characters are all recognisable for those familiar with Edinburgh... more info
Gentle satire on self-absorption This series has been criticised elsewhere for the characters being too self-absorbed, but for me that is half the pleasure. A lot of people are self-absorbed, and it is fascinating to see that people are often really thinking about themselves and their own concerns when they appear to be thinking something completely different - perhaps most clearly seen in the clash of egos of Bruce and Julia, where Bruce is so caught up in his own self-centred plans that it doesn't occur to him that Julia, in pursuit of... more info
