What have you been reading these days? A Distant View of Everything

A Distant View of Everything was another novel released in 2017, which was bought and read in 2018.  This novel is the 11^th in the Isabel Dalhousie mysteries or The Sunday Philosophy Club series by Alexander McCall-Smith, another hugely popular series.  I found out about this series while I looking for more about Alexander McCall-Smith.  I saw that he had another 'mystery' series – the Isabel Dalhousie mysteries.  Though I was intrigued by the ‘mysteries’ attached to one of the names given the series, I was intimated by the ‘philosophy club’ in the other name.  I felt it would be heavy reading, all that philosophy and stuff.  But ‘mystery’ won over ‘philosophy,’ and I started the first, The Sunday Philosophy Club, from which the series gets its name.  The novels are about Isabel Dalhousie and her life in Edinburgh.  She is a philosopher, not a practicing one, but one by training and thinking; and she is the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics.  There are a number of people around her that makes her life interesting and there is lots of art and music, and of course, Edinburgh is a huge presence in these novels.  As far as ‘mystery’ is concerned, it is more of Isabel getting involved in the lives of others, and solving their issues and problems; but the problems are interesting.  There is a lot of gentleness and thoughtfulness that have gone into these novels, just like the author’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels.  I read the first one and found myself liking Isabel and all those people and what was happening in their lives.  Since I started late, I had to catch up till 2012, by which time 10 novels had already appeared in the series.  For some reason, a gap of three years intervened between the 10^th and the 11^th novel in the series.  By the time, the 11^th arrived in 2015, I was ready and eagerly waiting. 

A Distant View of Everything came out in 2017, but again I waited till the paperback was released and the prices came down a bit.  I bought it when both conditions were sufficiently met.  What about the book itself?  A second son is born to Isabel and her musician husband, Jamie; there are sibling issues here; a possibility of a misunderstanding between Isabel and Jamie is projected and averted; she gets involved in a problem concerning a friend of a friend and does some investigations of her own; and everything ends well.  Lots of philosophy, actually ethics; and then some art, and music, and lots of Edinburgh.

Birthday gift books … thank you, Shubha …

Aha … I bought these four books from the generous birthday gift that Shubha gave me in the form of an amazon gift voucher … Shubha is my cousin (sister), who went on to become my sister-in-law ... of course, her husband (my brother), and their son, along with her, form the gifter triumvirate, but Shubha is the gifter-in-chief … she is one of the few people who indulges me in my madness for books and also one of the few who reads (I can't see this) and responds (I can see this) in some way or the other to my posts  …  

Two books arrived on Saturday last week and two on Sunday …

These two are the first Ross Macdonalds that I have purchased fresh and new.  My previous Ross Macdonalds are all used copies.  Come to think of it, I haven’t purchased any ‘new’ crime fiction book in a long time, until I bought these two.  Ross Macdonalds are very scarce even in used book stores, and even when they show up they are quite expensive.  Even those sources from where I had earlier picked up my used Ross Macdonalds have dried up.  I hadn’t read any Ross Macdonald novel for almost a year and was thirsty and hungry.  It is not that I was not tempted to buy a ‘new’ Ross Macdonald novel earlier.  The prices are much higher, of course.  So, I’d transfer some new ones into the shopping cart and wait, and wait, and wait … nothing would happen.  Once, the prices fell dramatically, but like a fool, I pushed my luck and waited.  The prices rose in the midnight 36 hours later, while I was sleeping and I continued to wait.  This gift voucher came at the right time, then.  Another sixty pages and The Goodbye Look would be done.

Haan … Precious and Grace is the latest novel in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith … and this is a series that I dearly love to read (along with many others!!) and I was waiting for the prices to fall on this one too … the book was released late last year, but the prices then were too high … I waited, again … and price came down a couple of days after my birthday … nice timing, I should say … in went this book to the cart …

1400 Bananas, 76 Towns, and 1 Million People was supposed to be part of a set of travel books that I intended to buy … but one book in the set is playing truant, and refusing to come down from the high horse it’s been sitting on for some time now … and when I was putting together books for the birthday gift set, Samir Nazareth’s book fit into the last slot, with just a wee bit sticking out …

I was finally satisfied only after I pushed the buy button and wiped out the gift voucher amount completely …

Thanks so much, Shubha … and Mahesh, and Teju … you jazz! men …