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The Lost Art of Gratitude: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel |  | Author: Alexander Mccall Smith
Publisher: Pantheon
List Price: $23.95
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Seller: millcreekbooks1
Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 10790
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 272
Number Of Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0375425144
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780375425141
ASIN: 0375425144
Publication Date: September 22, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780375425141 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
The sensational sixth installment in the best-selling chronicles of the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie.
Isabelâs son, Charlie, is now of an ageâeighteen monthsâto have a social life, and so off they go to a birthday party, where, much to Isabelâs surprise, she encounters an old adversary, Minty Auchterlonie, now a high-flying financier. Minty had seemed to Isabel a woman of ruthless ambition, but the question of her integrity had never been answered. Now, when Minty takes Isabel into her confidence about a personal matter, Isabel finds herself going another round: Is Minty to be trusted? Or is she the perpetrator of an enormous financial fraud? And what should Isabel make of the rumors of shady financial transactions at Minty's investment bank?
Not that this is the only dilemma facing Isabel: she also crosses swords again with her nemesis, Professor Dove, in an argument over plagiarism. Of course her niece, Cat, has a new, problematic man (a tightrope walker!) in her life. And there remains the open question of marriage to Jamieâdoting father of Charlie.
As always, there is no end to the delight in accompanying Isabel as she makes her way toward the heart of every problem: philosophizing, sleuthing, and downright snooping in her inimitableâand inimitably charmingâfashion.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
 Quick Read, Slow Plot but Inte February 27, 2010
Zohar Laor (NJ USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was my first Isabel Dalhousie novel (but the sixth in the series), a philosopher who pontificates about the mundane and lives in her own private hell where every word, gesture and movement has to be thought about, absorbed and dissected.
The book, even though a quick read, is very slow to present itself. It takes about 60 pages before the plot starts and about 220 pages before anything remotely interesting (plot wise) is happening. That being said, I did not find the book boring. The characters and their interactions are interesting; Isabel's pontifications are poignant, funny and thought provoking.
I could give you a rundown of the weak plot, but it's not that interesting and is not the main point of the novel, or was it what grabbed me and made me finish the book. The story is about a 40 year old woman, a philosopher who struggles to be happy while trying not to whip herself too hard (figuratively speaking), has a soft heart and a habit of getting involved in matters which she knows she should avoid. The story takes place in the charming village of Edinburgh, Scotland which is just as much a character as any other person in the book and has many subplots which allows Ms. Dalhousie to enlighten herself about the human condition.
The world this book takes place is funny, gentle where trouble and suffering are there, but not take precedence over the race for happiness and the dodge ball one has to play from friends, family and adversaries alike.
I gave this book three stars, I'm sure that it would have been higher if I would have read the series from the start.
A philosopher's life December 5, 2009
Linda Bulger (Avon, Maine)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Isabel Dalhousie's life is a mixture of mundane details and philosophical side roads. She is a philosopher, owner/editor of "The Review of Applied Ethics," mother of eighteen-month-old Charlie, fiancee of musician Jamie. Her gracious home in Edinburgh is filled with sunlight and Scottish paintings, and the woodpile in the back garden is the bolthole of Brother Fox. Isabel has the leisure to think deep philosophical thoughts, and McCall Smith allows us access to these wanderings. From poetry to Scottish pride to the importance of saying "thank you," we can count on Isabel to have an innteresting point of view.
So where's the dramatic tension in all this? To be honest, there isn't a lot, in the usual sense. Usually there's a mild mystery, since Isabel's curiousity leads her down pathways that could loosely be called "investigations;" but this time the extended title of the book has dropped the word "mystery" and picked up "novel" instead. A new direction for this series?
If you think you'd like to spend a little time inside the head of a philosopher, you could certainly do worse than the Isabel Dalhousie books. The Lost Art of Gratitude: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel, the sixth in the series, has a less incisive edge than the others and it's probably not the book to start with if you don't know the earlier ones. There's a lot to like here for those of us who know and enjoy Isabel, but it remains to be seen whether Isabel's new domestic preoccupations will improve or weaken the series. An enjoyable read, though less successful than the Dalhousie mysteries.
Linda Bulger, 2009
My Kind of Woman November 1, 2009
Barbara Badham (petaluma, CA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I won't bother recounting the plot of this book, because that is not what grabbed me. Rather, it was the stream-of-consciousness style of the author's narrative. This is a man writing about a woman's experience--which always makes me a little skeptical--but he seems to have found a "true enough" voice here. His heroine is the good-natured Isabel Dalhousie: 40 years old, a divorced Ph.D., mother of an 18-month-old son, newly the fiancé of her toddler's much-younger father, aunt to an edgy niece who used to date her fiancé, and the owner and publisher of a journal on moral philosophy who works from home. She seems a kindly sort, prone out of some instinct of goodness to want to insert herself helpfully into the business of others. No secret here, that instinct can get her in trouble. She calls Edinburgh her home, and McCall weaves local Scottish color into his plot line.
But the book, whose happenings pass over just a few days, is spelled out in terms of Isabel's thought process. While I found it similar to my own and therefore liked it, most novels are rendered in terms of dialogue. This one has dialogue, of course, but the reader is also privy to all of Isabel's thoughts between her utterances and those of her associates. It took some getting used to that, perhaps the first 100 pages or so. But the thread hangs together, and so in the end did not bog down as I was afraid it might. I would call it a unique writing style, and in the end it held personal resonance for me. (Beware, however, if you are afraid of "thought broadcasting.")
Count Your Blessings and the Annoyances Don't Seem to Matter So Much October 28, 2009
Professor Donald Mitchell (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 93,000 Helpful Votes Globally)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
"And the LORD God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant." -- Jonah 4:6
The sixth novel in this series about moral philosophy concerns happiness: The book demonstrates that you obtain that delightful state when you appreciate the good parts of your life and realize they are more valuable than your annoyances. Cultivate gratitude and you will be happy.
Unlike the earlier books in this series, there isn't much plot at all. Readers will rejoice in some good news for Isabel Dalhousie in her personal life while groaning over another run-in with professors Dove and Lettuce as well as some unsettling interactions with Minty Auchterlonie. There are two brief scenes with Cat that are a bit trying as well. Your heart will be warmed by some great moments with Charlie and Jamie.
There's no doubt about it that the series loses a lot of steam in this book. Even the wicked Minty didn't succeed in entertaining me very much: She just another grasping person who has to have her way.
I would have graded the book at three stars, but the charming moments were delightful and frequent enough to lift this book into the above-average category for me. Some of the humor is very well drawn, and I could easily imagine the author chortling in his kilt as I read it.
Ultimately unsatisfying October 24, 2009
Kerry Raymond (Brisbane, Australia)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
There's a significant word in the title - "Novel". Yes, "novel", not "mystery" as the previous Isabel Dalhousie books have been labelled. So, there is "truth in advertising" because there is certainly no solving of mysteries in this book.
Instead we have the gentle story of a few weeks in the charmed life of Isabel Dalhousie and her relatives, friends and enemies, in which nothing much happens.
The not-so-nice Profs Dove & Lettuce re-appear but are easily and oh-so conveniently foiled again. The main storyline (or what I assumed was the main storyline) involving Minty the investment banker seems largely unresolved by the end of the book, so much so that I had to re-read it to make sure that I hadn't accidentally missed some important plot development by skipping a page. Perhaps the plan is for the next novel in the series to bring the Minty storyline to some kind of closure, or is the lack of closure somehow the point of the novel?
Perhaps "The Lost Art of Gratitude" is an attempt to resposition Isabel Dalhousie series into the serialised format of the 44 Scotland Street series, where we expect to follow the storylines of the characters from book to book. Or perhaps the author has just run out of steam with this group of characters?
If you are an Alexander McCall Smith fan and have read all his other books (as I have), by all means read this book for completeness (I am sure nothing I could say would stop you anyway). If you are new to Alexander McCall Smith, then this isn't the book to start with, try Number One Ladies' Detective Agency.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
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