Book Twentynine: The Careful Use of Compliments

The Careful Use of Compliments, Alexander McCall Smith



It is a great compliment to an author when I decide to buy a hardcover edition of a book. I stood at the bookstore staring at this book, wondering how long it might take for the paperback to come out and measuring that against my own patience. Obviously my patience lost this one. I liked this book quite a bit more than the last, and there was, in this, the faintest glimmer of a mystery. Early on in the book, I almost lost patience with Isabel--she seemed so silly and insecure and superficial (despite all the moral philosophizing). But the book really picked up about half way through and I was finally glad I decided to suck it up and buy the hardcover. My own quibble is how convenient the baby seemed, how easy it was for her to go about her regular business and yet conveniently have the baby around--a quiet, happy, sweet baby--when she wanted. Ah, if only real life is like that... we'd all have babies! Three or four, heck, twenty babies!