Month: August 2014

Alexander McCall Smith’s Sunshine on Scotland Street has come out in Vintage Canada paperback edition, and once again the Scottish author is fun to read.

McCall Smith is a retired professor of medical law from the University of Edinburgh. He is also an endless watcher of the people around him, as well as those he makes up. They are a motley crew – often droll, mischievous but believable, and in the end appealing.

As well as the 44 Scotland Street Series, McCall Smith has written The Isabel Dalhousie Novels, The Corduroy Mansions Series, The Portuguese Irregular Verbs Series, The No. l Ladies Detective Agency Series and several books for Young Readers. This one makes you feel you are living in Edinburgh, with its old stone houses, elegant Princes Street, view of the castle and beckoning pubs. In spite of its reputation for rain, McCall Smith shows a very sunny side of the city he loves as well as the affection between the various families and inmates of 44 Scotland Street. It’s a very upbeat book.

Review by Anne McDougall

This is a touching story of two young people raised on opposite sides of the Second World War, who eventually meet and fall in love.

As the war rages, the author Anthony Doerr introduces us to the blind daughter of an employee of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, who escapes the Nazi invasion with her father to live in the walled citadel of Saint-Malo. He also brings in the German orphan, Werner, living in an orphanage with his sister in a mining town, when he is chosen by the Nazis to join the academy of Hitler Youth.

The war widens and a series of coincidences brings these two characters together. Doerr writes intimately about the beauties of nature, the love and loyalty of human beings, as they shine through the horrors of war.

He is the author of a number of story collections and novels, many of which have won prizes in the U.S. and overseas. He lives in Boise, Idaho with his wife and two sons.

Review by Anne McDougall