Bertie Plays The Blues Alexander Mccall Smith Smith Alexander Mccall by Alexander Mccall Smith [smith, Alexander Mccall] 9780349000329, 9782330030988, 2330030983, 0349000328, B005FVL87S instant download after payment.

Even down to its well-set Georgian townhouses, Edinburgh is a hymn to measure and harmony. But on Scotland Street, domestic accord is in short supply. Matthew and Elspeth welcome three new arrivals, though the joys of multiple parenthood are somewhat lost due to sleep deprivation and the difficulties of telling their brood apart. Angus and Domenica are to marry, and Domenica has ambitious and disturbing plans for their living arrangements, especially when it appears that Antonia, in Italy recuperating from Stendhal Syndrome, may not return. And little Bertie, feeling blue, puts himself up for adoption on eBay. Can Edinburgh's most deliciously dysfunctional residents forsake discord and learn to dance to the same happy tune?

### From Booklist

*Starred Review* Bertie is a six-and-a-half-year-old boy in Edinburgh who is so unhappy with his mother-driven schedule of yoga, Italian lessons, and a weekly visit to a psychotherapist that he puts himself up for adoption on eBay. He lives with his well-meaning but weak father and domineering mother in a well-appointed but loveless flat on Scotland Street. This upscale apartment building, the setting for McCall Smith’s Scotland Street series, also houses a cultural anthropologist, soon to marry a portrait painter, and it used to hold the gels, ointments, mirrors, and wardrobe used by Bruce, the beyond-handsome narcissist who fascinates the art student Pat (McCall Smith says it’s like a cobra fascinating a mouse). The prolific McCall Smith, who also produces the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and the Corduroy Mansions series, writes the Scotland Street novels in serial form for The Scotsman, appearing daily several months a year. He moves from vignette to vignette within the flat and in greater Edinburgh, always moving his characters’ fates forward bit by bit, meeting in the apartment house hallway by meeting at Big Lou’s café or meeting at the wine bar. The plotlines, now spanning seven novels, are devilishly clever, but readers may well value even more McCall Smith’s wit and his characters’ conversations and reflections on happiness, loneliness, and love. Often droll, often touching, the Scotland Street stories are always delightful to read. --Connie Fletcher

### Review

'For me the nicest writer in Scotland is Alexander McCall Smith. The Importance of Being Seven made me feel good about life, the universe and everything' ALEX GRAY