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Bertie Plays the Blues

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

44 SCOTLAND STREET - Book 7
The residents and neighbors of 44 Scotland Street and the city of Edinburgh come to vivid life in these gently satirical, wonderfully perceptive serial novels, featuring six-year-old Bertie, a remarkably precocious boy—just ask his mother.  

If you haven’t met the residents of 44 Scotland Street yet, there is no better time, since everyone seems to be in the midst of new beginnings.
 
New parents Matthew and Elspeth must muddle through the difficulties of raising their triplets Rognvald, Tobermory and Fegus—there's normal sleep deprivation, and then there's trying to tell the children apart from one another. Angus and Domenica are newly engaged, and now they must negotiate the complex merger of two households. Domenica is also forced to deal with the return of an old flame, while Big Lou has begun the search for a new one, boldly exploring the new world of online dating and coming up with an Elvis impersonator on the first try. And in Bertie’s family, there's a shift in power as his father Stuart starts to stand up to overbearing mother, Irene—and then there’s Bertie, who has been thinking that he might want to start over with a new family and so puts himself up for adoption on eBay.  With his signature charm and gentle wit Alexander McCall Smith vividly portrays the lives of Edinburgh’s most unique and beloved characters.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from October 7, 2013
      Bestseller Smith's seventh 44 Scotland Street novel (after 2012's The Importance of Being Seven) provides another genial, witty glimpse into the life and times of the denizens of an Edinburgh neighborhood. Seven-year-old Bertie Pollock gets top billing in the title, but all the usual characters figure in the book's many subplots, including Bertie's parents, Irene and Stuart; schoolmates Ranald and Olive; Elspeth Harmony, her husband, Matthew, and their newborn triplets; Domenica Macdonald (now affianced to Angus Lordie); and the proprietress of the local cafe, Big Lou. How will Elspeth and Matthew cope with triplets? Where will Domenica and Angus live? Can Big Lou find happiness through online dating? And on the farcical side, can Bertie orphan himself by auctioning off his parents on eBay? Smith writes soap operas, but for a thoughtful, literate audience interested in the inherent conflict between the moral virtue of civility and the personal desire for happiness. As Angus puts it, there are people who "led the examined lifeâwho questioned themselves, who weighed up what to do, who developed and nurtured the self." They are philosophical but always human, and Smith's great gift is to renderâand reconcileâthat contradiction. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency.

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  • OverDrive Read
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Languages

  • English

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