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Welcome to my second newsletter. I'm currently on tour in North America and will return to the UK in early May. The American tour has been a fairly extensive one, starting in New York, where I did a lunchtime event at the New York Public Library. I then went on to Boston and from Boston to Philadelphia, where I took part in the first Philadelphia Book Fair at the Public Library. The sun came out for that - after a spell of awful weather - and I think that their fair was a great success. While I was there I met up again with Professor Edward Mendelson, who is W. H. Auden's literary executor and who has recently published a complete compilation of all the poems which Auden wished to preserve. Professor Mendelson has appeared as a character in one of the Isabel Dalhousie novels and will certainly make another appearance in due course. (I wrote an introduction to the Folio Society edition of Auden's Shorter Poems; I admire Auden's work immensely). Welcome to my second newsletter. I'm currently on tour in North America and will return to the UK in early May.

The American tour has been a fairly extensive one, starting in New York, where I did a lunchtime event at the New York Public Library. I then went on to Boston and from Boston to Philadelphia, where I took part in the first Philadelphia Book Fair at the Public Library. The sun came out for that - after a spell of awful weather - and I think that their fair was a great success. While I was there I met up again with Professor Edward Mendelson, who is W. H. Auden's literary executor and who has recently published a complete compilation of all the poems which Auden wished to preserve. Professor Mendelson has appeared as a character in one of the Isabel Dalhousie novels and will certainly make another appearance in due course. (I wrote an introduction to the Folio Society edition of Auden's Shorter Poems; I admire Auden's work immensely).

From Philadelphia I went to Naperville, just outside Chicago, and then on to San Francisco, where I did a number of signings at bookstores and an evening event. That was followed by a trip to El Paso, Texas, where I appeared at the El Paso Country Club and was wonderfully entertained by the committee at an evening reception on the lawn, out under a wide, empty sky.

The next stop was Oxford, Mississippi, a town of great charm in the deep south, the home of William Faulkner, whose house one can visit. I stayed there with the Mayor and his wife, in a marvelous house that has shady verandas and porches and is surrounded by towering trees. I did two events in Oxford - one for children at a school (children in the South are extremely polite, I can confirm) - and then headed off to Jackson, by way of Greenwood, a town in the Mississippi Delta, which has the most beautiful bookshop I have seen for a long time. Greenwood is undergoing a revival, and decided, very wisely, that no town could revive without a good bookstore to provide a cultural focus.

From Jackson I went to Birmingham, Alabama, where I did a talk at the Mountain Brook Public Library. It was very moving for me to meet so many readers of the books there who had taken the trouble to travel long distances from other states to attend the event. People came from Georgia, Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana - all to discuss the latest developments in the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency as well as in Scotland Street and the Edinburgh of Isabel Dalhousie.

As I write this I am in Fairfax, Virginia, which is just outside Washington, DC. I leave for Canada on the 2nd May and will be appearing in Toronto before I return to New York, via Iowa City, and then, of course, go back to Scotland. Toronto is a favourite city of mine, as I have many friends there and am an honorary fellow of Massey College of the University of Toronto. I shall be doing a lunch in aid of World Literacy at the Toronto Public Library. There will also be a dinner in aid of the same charity in the Lincoln Centre in New York on the 7th. It is a wonderful cause, which helps literacy schemes all over the world. The Canadian branch is chaired by my Canadian editor, Diane Martin, who has been a great supporter of the cause for some years.

Looking ahead, the rest of the year is going to be rather busy. In July I shall be in Botswana, where I shall be visiting the safari camps run by the Orient Express company as well as doing a number of events in Gaborone. The filming of the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency should be going on then (deo volente) and I hope to visit the set and meet the actors and actresses. Various people, including Amy Moore, the associate producer, and Anthony Minghella, the director, have put in a great deal of work to get the project off the ground. Filming seems to be an immensely complex business, involving vast expense and mind-boggling feats of logistics. I am very grateful to these people for all their hard work.

In August I shall be doing an extensive tour of Australia, including events at the Melbourne Book Festival, which is a wonderful festival that I visited two years ago. It was while I was there, in fact, that I had a conversation with that great publisher, Michael Heyward, that resulted in the writing of Dream Angus, my book about the Angus myth in Scotland and Ireland. I shall also be appearing at the Hay Book Festival, which I always enjoy. In September I shall do another American tour.

In spite of these touring commitments, I am finding some time for writing! I shall start work on the next Mma Ramotswe novel in June, and I have already written the first chapter of the fifth 44 Scotland Street novel. That will begin to appear in The Scotsman in October and will appear as a book in 2008. And I am also looking forward to beginning work on the fifth Isabel Dalhousie book, which I shall start in December.

I would like to thank all my readers for their kind support over the last few years. If it were not for this support, which you have so generously given, I would certainly not have had the inclination to write these books. Thank you so much for that.

Alexander McCall Smith  
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All newsletter subscribers will be eligible to win one of five special prints of the Love Over Scotland cover signed by Alexander McCall Smith and Iain McIntosh, illustrator of the 44 Scotland Street series.
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Listen to an exclusive recording of Alexander McCall Smith reading from Love Over Scotland.

With his characteristic warmth, inventiveness and brilliant wit, Alexander McCall Smith gives us more of the gloriously entertaining comings and goings at 44 Scotland Street, the Edinburgh townhouse.

Six-year-old prodigy Bertie perseveres in his heroic struggle for truth and balanced good sense against his insufferable mother and her crony, the psychotherapist Dr Fairbairn. Domenica sets off on an anthropological odyssey with pirates in the Malacca Straits, while Pat attracts several handsome admirers, including a toothsome suitor named Wolf. And Big Lou, eternal source of coffee and good advice to her friends, has love, heartbreak and erstwhile boyfriend Eddie's misdemeanours on her own mind.

Love Over Scotland is available from all good bookshops or from the website.

ISBN: 978 0 349 11971 7, B format paperback, £6.99


Alexander McCall Smith will be making the following public appearances in May:

Saturday 5th May at 5pm - Iowa City
Prairie Lights Bookstore event. 15S. Dubuque Street, Iowa City, IA, U.S.A.Tel: 319-337-2681

Monday 7th May - NewYork
Lincoln Center, New York, Literacy Partners Gala Dinner and Dance.

Sunday 13thMay - Richmond-upon-Thames
Richmond-upon-Thames Arts Council Book Picnic, The Green, Richmond-upon-Thames.

Thursday 24th May at 6.30pm - Birmingham
University of Birmingham Annual Happiness Lecture, University of Birmingham Medical School. For tickets contact: Tel: 0121 414 9130.
Email: reception@adf.bham.ac.uk

Saturday 26th May - Hay Book Festival


Recent Event

On Thursday 1st March, Alexander McCall Smith was guest of honour at the 10th World Book Day event at the  Globe Theatre in London. Alexander gave a wonderful speech about the importance of reading, his memories of reading as a child and his career as a writer. He also read a specially written short story for the event, which he presented to the organisers.
Author photograph 1 (c) Graham Clark; Author photograph 2 (c) Bobby Nayyar.


   
 
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