44 Scotland Street

by

325 pages

English language

Published Nov. 1, 2005 by Polygon.

ISBN:
9781904598169

View on OpenLibrary

3 stars (1 review)

Welcome to 44 Scotland Street, home to some of Edinburgh's most colorful characters. There's Pat, a twenty-year-old who has recently moved into a flat with Bruce, an athletic young man with a keen awareness of his own appearance. Their neighbor, Domenica, is an eccentric and insightful widow. In the flat below are Irene and her appealing son Bertie, who is the victim of his mother's desire for him to learn the saxophone and italian--all at the tender age of five. Love triangles, a lost painting, intriguing new friends, and an encounter with a famous Scottish crime writer are just a few of the ingredients that add to this delightful and witty portrait of Edinburgh society, which was first published as a serial in The Scotsman newspaper.From the Trade Paperback edition.

4 editions

reviewed 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith

Pleasant but forgettable

3 stars

This was very readable, very easy and pleasant, almost cozy to read. It's a little tougher to say that I'll remember it, or see exactly what the point was. I understand that this was a serialised novel, and I could imagine reading it one chapter a day (for some 200 days) and that would be quite nice.

But reading it as a book novel, I struggle to see what the point is? It's almost like a soap opera in written form. That said I did like the character development, it just didn't seem to go anywhere with those developed characters.

Subjects

  • Apartment houses -- Fiction.
  • Young women -- Fiction.
  • Art galleries, Commercial -- Employees -- Fiction.
  • Roommates -- Fiction.
  • Edinburgh (Scotland) -- Fiction.