⋙ [PDF] Blue Shoes and Happiness No 1 Ladies Detective Agency Book 7 Alexander McCall Smith 9781400075713 Books

Blue Shoes and Happiness No 1 Ladies Detective Agency Book 7 Alexander McCall Smith 9781400075713 Books

Download As PDF : Blue Shoes and Happiness No 1 Ladies Detective Agency Book 7 Alexander McCall Smith 9781400075713 Books

Blue Shoes and Happiness No 1 Ladies Detective Agency Book 7 Alexander McCall Smith 9781400075713 Books

The plot is a little thin, and there are a lot of new characters introduced all at once, without time to get a feel for each one. The children are almost totally absent from the book. I love this series, but I liked the first 6 books better.
The author seems to suggest certain ideas (typically through the characters), like that all women are heterosexual, should get married to a man, cook and clean, and aim to please men. Sometimes it seems like the author pokes fun at feminism by suggesting it's some radical form of being mean to men or anti-men.
Although some of the ideas are just banter/thoughts of the characters, there seems to be a fairly common theme of women's ideal lives consisting of marriage to men, pleasing men, stroking their male partners' egos, being responsible for all domestic chores, etc.
I'm not sure how I feel about the (in my opinion) idea that a blood pressure of 160/90 is normal. The author may be making gentle jokes, but if you take the protagonist's journey/conclusions seriously, it seems like being morbidly obese is suggested in the face of medical facts about how dangerous it is. It's fine to joke about diets & strokes, but it isn't actually funny if you or someone you care about throws health advice out the window & suffers or dies from obesity/related conditions. I have family who have blood pressures in the range discussed in the book (which also seems to poke fun at blood pressure medication), and they have horrible health problems. If they read this and thought ignored medical advice because cake is nice, they'd die.
Yes, this is fiction, the author isn't explicitly telling people to be unhealthy, but the ideas in this book seem to head in directions I'm not fully comfortable with.
The male characters who are good people seem to need the women to fall all over them to please them, even when the men are in the wrong/made a mistake. Mma Ramotswe submits to her fiancé/husband adopting children (whom she's expected to care for) unannounced because he's a good man. Mma Makutsi has to bend over backwards for saying she's a feminist because her fiancé is also a good man. There are good men everywhere, but why is it the women's job to always accommodate good men who made decisions without consulting them or made mistakes?
Bottom line is that if you like the series, you'll probably like this one, but it wasn't my favorite.


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Blue Shoes and Happiness No 1 Ladies Detective Agency Book 7 Alexander McCall Smith 9781400075713 Books Reviews

What can one say about this marvelous series by Alexander McCall Smith. I've bought them all and have become more enchanted and entertained by each book. In her gentle, restrained manner, Precious Ramotswe, private investigator extraordinaire, and her assistant Mma Makutsi, whose love affair is in peril due to her femminist leanings, encounter a cobra in their office, deal with a bad omen in the guise of a wounded bird, purchase a new chair, encourage a new employee to dectect, and try to solve a blackmail plot that has Mma Ramotswe investigating the kitchen of a private school to find who the blackmailer is and bring them to justice.

Add to this Mma Makutsi's pair of tight fitting, uncomfortable yet beautiful blue shoes, the daily pots of red bush tea, and most shocking of all a new diet by Precious to lessen her "traditional" build, and you have a story that enchants and beguiles the reader. Precious is a lady as well as a detective; she knows truth must be laced with compassion and she understands both the strengths and frailties of human nature. She also has a deep fundamental understanding of what makes people tick and this is what makes her a great dectective, capable of solving small and big myteries. McCall Smith writes simply and lovingly about Botswana, the land that Precious knows is not perfect, but yet is better than anywhere else. He also seamlessly interlaces the people and their way of life within the mystery.

I can't say enough about The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series, buy them all, sit back, read and enjoy a different and wonderful mystery series. These books are keepers.
I love Alexander McCall Smith's books. And I love his very colorful characters - Mma Ramotswe, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, and Grace Makutsi. When you've had a tough day or a tough week, there are few greater pleasures than curling up in bed early with hot tea and the next installment of "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency."
I don't know how McCall Smith does it. He is an outstanding writer, one who captures the essence of the culture he is writing about. I have a special love for this series, because it takes place in Botswana, Souther Africa, where my husband was in Peace Corps for 4 years. Get one or all of these wonderful books. They are the best!
I discovered this series only recently and I can understand why, as I found out, it is such a world-wide success and why Mma Ramotswe has become such an icon. It is not great, ponderous literature -- it is much more than that! The plots are simple but well done; the writing very pleasant. However, in my opinion neither plot nor style, perfectly unobjectionable as they are, are these books' main attraction. The characters are, and their interaction. The people come to life all the time wise, funny, loyal, weak -- completely human. There are great life lessons to be learned in these apparently simple books, from love for humanity, to the need for forgiveness and respect. Objects, and the land, also play an important and unforgettable role. I barely knew where to find Botswana on the world map before, and now it is so vivid in my mind as if I lived there for ever. One warmly given suggestion read these books chronologically. You will enjoy them even if your read them in an hapazard order, but if you read them as they were written you will be drawn even more into this jewel of a world.
The plot is a little thin, and there are a lot of new characters introduced all at once, without time to get a feel for each one. The children are almost totally absent from the book. I love this series, but I liked the first 6 books better.
The author seems to suggest certain ideas (typically through the characters), like that all women are heterosexual, should get married to a man, cook and clean, and aim to please men. Sometimes it seems like the author pokes fun at feminism by suggesting it's some radical form of being mean to men or anti-men.
Although some of the ideas are just banter/thoughts of the characters, there seems to be a fairly common theme of women's ideal lives consisting of marriage to men, pleasing men, stroking their male partners' egos, being responsible for all domestic chores, etc.
I'm not sure how I feel about the (in my opinion) idea that a blood pressure of 160/90 is normal. The author may be making gentle jokes, but if you take the protagonist's journey/conclusions seriously, it seems like being morbidly obese is suggested in the face of medical facts about how dangerous it is. It's fine to joke about diets & strokes, but it isn't actually funny if you or someone you care about throws health advice out the window & suffers or dies from obesity/related conditions. I have family who have blood pressures in the range discussed in the book (which also seems to poke fun at blood pressure medication), and they have horrible health problems. If they read this and thought ignored medical advice because cake is nice, they'd die.
Yes, this is fiction, the author isn't explicitly telling people to be unhealthy, but the ideas in this book seem to head in directions I'm not fully comfortable with.
The male characters who are good people seem to need the women to fall all over them to please them, even when the men are in the wrong/made a mistake. Mma Ramotswe submits to her fiancé/husband adopting children (whom she's expected to care for) unannounced because he's a good man. Mma Makutsi has to bend over backwards for saying she's a feminist because her fiancé is also a good man. There are good men everywhere, but why is it the women's job to always accommodate good men who made decisions without consulting them or made mistakes?
Bottom line is that if you like the series, you'll probably like this one, but it wasn't my favorite.