Books and beyond

Alexander McCall Smith, renowned for his series the “Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency,” is the author of several other series as well. As a fan of philosophical musings, I have particularly enjoyed his Isabel Dalhousie series (originally called the Sunday Philosophy Club series). In both of these popular series, his main character is female. Although characterized as a mystery, Isabel Dalhousie isn’t your typical mystery solver (e.g. not a private eye, not with the police). She just tends involve herself with those trying to sort out a mystery in their lives.

In The Forgotten Affairs of Youth she is assisting an Australian woman, Jane, who is trying to identify (and perhaps even locate) her biological father. Along the way we are privy to Isabel’s insightful, though wandering and sometimes very tangential, musings, such as “Nobody felt very much ashamed of anything any more, Isabel thought. You could do what you liked and then speak about it at great length on a confessional television show and nobody would bat an eye. And while that revealed a healthier attitude when it came to dealing with things that were better unconcealed, or with things that should not involve shame at all, it also meant that one of the main reasons for social restraint had been removed.” (p. 155) Begin with the first book in the series, The Sunday Philosophy Club.”