Date Published: 19th May 2024

We have been out on the road with Alexander McCall Smith, meeting readers in the north of England. We were celebrating publication of The Perfect Passion Company and offering a sneak preview of the forthcoming book in the Isabel Dalhousie series, The Conditions of Unconditional Love, as well (of course) as catching up with old friends from Botswana and The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, and all the neighbours in Scotland Street. The short tour took in The Lit & Phil library in Newcastle, then over to Darlington and the Crossing the Tees Festival. And then up to the Lake District and Words by the Water in The Theatre by the Lake in Keswick. Alexander was delighted to meet readers wherever he went but also to meet the independent booksellers who keep the whole show running. He is forever grateful to each and every bookseller he meets.

The Conditions of Unconditional Love will be published in the US in July.

‘You can’t go out of the house without tripping over a philosophical question.’ That is a remark made by Isabel Dalhousie to Jamie, the bassoonist who is her handsome younger husband. Isabel’s own life, of course, points to the truth of this observation: she seems to attract philosophical problems in much the same way as a magnet attracts iron filings.

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And then home to glorious skies over Edinburgh…