Espresso Tales (38 page)

A
LEXANDER
M
C
C
ALL
S
MITH
ESPRESSO TALES

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the huge international phenomenon, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, and The Sunday Philosophy Club series. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe, and he was a law professor at the University of Botswana and at Edinburgh University. He lives in Scotland. Visit his Web site at
www.alexandermccallsmith.com
.

BOOKS BY
A
LEXANDER
M
C
C
ALL
S
MITH

In The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Tears of the Giraffe

Morality for Beautiful Girls

The Kalahari Typing School for Men

The Full Cupboard of Life

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

Blue Shoes and Happiness

In The Sunday Philosophy Club series

The Sunday Philosophy Club

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

In the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series

Portuguese Irregular Verbs

The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs

At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances

In the 44 Scotland Street series

44
Scotland Street

Espresso Tales

The Girl Who Married a Lion and Other Tales from Africa

Praise for Alexander McCall Smith's

44 SCOTLAND STREET

The First Novel in the Series

“This soulful, sweet [book] will make you feel as though you live in Edinburgh, if only for a short while, and it's a fine place to visit indeed…. Long live the folks on Scotland Street.”

—
The Times-Picayune
(New Orleans)

“McCall Smith's generous writing and dry humor, his gentleness and humanity, and his ability to evoke a place and a set of characters without caricature or condescension have endeared his books…to readers.”

—
The New York Times

“Entertaining and witty…. A sly send-up of society in Edinburgh.”

—
The Orlando Sentinel

“A welcome addition to the McCall Smith repertoire…. Few writers are better than McCall Smith at making the telling observation…. [And] it is far more fun to read [than] Flaubert.”

—
The Miami Herald

“Alexander McCall Smith is the most genial of writers and the most gentle of satirists…. [The] characters are great fun…[and] McCall Smith treats all of them with affection…. Life's lessons are laid on in this novel with the lightest of touch.”

—
Rocky Mountain News

“Pure McCall Smith…. A finely judged blend of wit and wisdom.”

—
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

“Amusing…. Endearing…. The possibility of romance, the ongoing ups and downs of the large, well-drawn cast of characters, the intricate plot and the way McCall Smith nimbly jumps from situation to situation work beautifully.”

—
The Journal Gazette
(Fort Wayne)

“Intelligent writing…. McCall Smith's cast of characters is varied and well-drawn…. It's a pleasure to read a novel that exercises your mind.”

—
The Oakland Tribune

“[McCall Smith's] sense of gentle but pointed humor is once again afoot in
44 Scotland Street
…. The short chapters make for perfect bedtime reading.”

—
The Seattle Times

“A joyous, charming portrait of city life and human foibles, which moves beyond its setting to deal with deep moral issues and love, desire and friendship. Without resorting to clichéd cliff-hangers, McCall Smith has mastered the short, episodic chapter endearingly.”

—
Sunday Express

FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, JULY 2006

Copyright © 2005 by Alexander McCall Smith

Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Iain McIntosh

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd., Edinburgh, in 2005.

Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book is excerpted from a series that originally appeared in the
Scotsman
newspaper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McCall Smith, Alexander, 1948–

Espresso Tales : tales from 44 Scotland Street / Alexander McCall Smith; illustrated by Iain McIntosh.

p. cm.

1. Roommates—Fiction. 2. Apartment houses—Fiction. 3. Edinburgh (Scotland)—Social life and customs—Fiction. 4. Humorous stories, English. I. Title.

PR6063.C326E87 2006

823'.917—dc22

2005057175

www.anchorbooks.com

eISBN: 978-0-307-38639-7

v3.0