Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party

Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101873019
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 117

Book Description
An all-new, never-before-published original short novel by the bestselling author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, about a hapless American tourist’s larger-than-life comical trip to Ireland. Shortlisted for the 2015 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction Cornelius P. “Fatty” O'Leary and his wife, Betty, plan a vacation in Ireland for his fortieth birthday, where they will tour his ancestral homeland and relax in the countryside. Almost immediately, things go terribly wrong: the seats in economy class on the plane are too small; the country hotel’s dinner spread and bathroom fixtures leave much to be desired; and the down-to-earth O’Learys find their fellow guests are more than a little snobbish. In this amusing and touching portrayal of a kindly, misunderstood soul, McCall Smith has created yet another memorable character who will become an instant favorite to his many fans. An eBook short.

Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party

Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Polygon
ISBN: 9781846974519
Category : Humorous stories
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Book Description
It takes a lot to get under the skin of Cornelius 'Fatty O'Leary, but then there is a lot of skin to get under. The heroically proportioned Fatty can normally take life as it comes. Right at home in easy-going Fayetteville, Arkansas, he is happily married to his childhood sweetheart Betty, and likes nothing better than the company of good friends Tubby O'Rourke and Porky Flanagan. But when Fatty and Betty head off to Ireland on the trip of a lifetime, they find that they have left their comfort zone far behind. Calamity and mayhem ensue as one mishap after another befalls the beleaguered couple. Can Fatty's broad shoulders take the strain or will he suffer one indignity too many? Will he get his just deserts, or just dessert?

The Forever Girl

Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1405516038
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Book Description
Clover has loved James for as long as she can remember, since before she knew what what love was. But fate seems determined to keep them apart. As children, Clover and James played beside a turquoise sea under cloudless skies, their Caribbean island home a place of pleasure and privilege, of lush lawns and tennis parties. In such a paradise nothing should obstruct the kind of happiness Clover dreams of, except that, as she discovers, true love is often harder than paradise allows for. And when Clover's mother falls out of love with her husband, a web of complications is woven that may take Clover a lifetime to unravel. If she ever can . . . Tender and true, The Forever Girl traces love's unpredictable path to maturity with style, wit and feeling.

Trains and Lovers

Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307908550
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 172

Book Description
The rocking motion of the train as it speeds along, the sound of its wheels on the rails . . . There’s something special about this form of travel that makes for easy conversation, which is just what happens to the four strangers who meet in Trains and Lovers. As they journey by rail from Edinburgh to London, the four travelers pass the time by sharing tales of trains that have changed their lives. A young, keen-eyed Scotsman recounts how he turned a friendship with a female coworker into a romance by spotting an anachronistic train in an eighteenth-century painting. An Australian woman shares how her parents fell in love and spent their life together running a railroad siding in the remote Australian Outback. A middle-aged American patron of the arts sees two young men saying goodbye in a train station and recalls his own youthful crush on another man. And a young Englishman describes how exiting his train at the wrong station allowed him to meet an intriguing woman whom he impulsively invited to dinner—and into his life. Here is Alexander McCall Smith at his most enchanting, exploring the nature of love—and trains—in a collection of romantic, intertwined stories. This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.

The Perfect Hamburger

Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141927844
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 77

Book Description
A funny and poignant children's story from one of the world's most prolific and popular authors Alexander McCall Smith. It's all about hamburgers! Joe has just created the yummiest, juiciest, most delicious hamburger ever - and his friend Mr Borthwick wants to sell it in his hamburger shop to try and win back customers from the new fast-food place across the road. But there's a problem - Joe has completely forgotten the recipe... A pinch of this, a touch of that and a spoonful of something else...the race is on for Joe to remember!

The Mummy Awakens

Author: Naguib Mahfouz
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101973412
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 29

Book Description
A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection By the Arab world’s foremost novelist, Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, famous for The Cairo Trilogy—the masterwork in which Mahfouz sets down life in middle class Cairo during the interwar years. From Mahfouz’s collection of fantastical myths, Voices from the Other World, this is the enchanting tale about one Francophile Pasha whose greed, ambition, and contempt for Egyptians drives him to excavate the tomb of General Hor and there find his untimely end. An ebook short.

The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café

Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307911551
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Book Description
Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma Ramotswe—with help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsi—navigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea. Over the years Mma Ramotswe has found many lost things, but never before has she been asked to help a woman find herself—until now. A kindhearted brother and sister have taken in a nameless woman with no memory of her own history or how she came to Botswana. It falls to Precious Ramotswe and her new co-director, Grace Makutsi, to discover the woman's identity. Meanwhile, motherhood proves to be no obstacle to Mma Makutsi’s professional success, as she launches a new enterprise of her own: the Handsome Man's De Luxe Café, a restaurant for Gaborone’s most fashionable diners. And next door, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is forced to make a choice that will directly affect not only Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, but the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency as well. With sympathy and indefatigable good humor, Mma Ramotswe and her friends see one another through these major changes and discover along the way what true friendship really means.

The Presence of Men

Author: Francesca Marciano
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 110197429X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 60

Book Description
A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection Lara moved to a little undiscovered village in southern Italy to find a respite from her newly divorced life in Rome. She works hard to find approval and eventually befriends an elderly, local seamstress, Mina. But, when her brother comes to visit, he brings along an uproarious film star who threatens to disrupt her newly quaint, yet happy, existence. From brilliant young Italian screenwriter Francesca Marciano, this is a meticulous, evocative portrait of a woman who seeks and learns to find peace and reestablish her sense of home away from the damaging intrusions of men. Invoking the sights, sounds, and intimacy of southern Italy, “The Presence of Men” is selected from The Other Language, the extraordinary debut collection from one of Italy’s finest new female writers. An ebook short.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue

Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101912057
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 47

Book Description
A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection The precursor to Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot: Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin is blessed with the gift of intuition, and he puts it to the test after a horrible murder in the Rue Morgue. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” is thought to be the first modern detective story, published by Edgar Allan Poe in 1841. In this classic tale the detective demonstrates the ineptitude of the police, the value of reason, and how it’s the seemingly least important details that often matter most. A landmark in the history of detective fiction. Selected from Vintage’s compact selection of Poe’s greatest work, Great Tales and Poems. An eBook short.

The Office

Author: Alice Munro
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101912405
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 31

Book Description
A short story from Nobel Prize–winning Alice Munro’s first collection, Dance of the Happy Shades “It is no exaggeration to state that Munro’s short stories are among the finest that have ever been written.”—The Dallas Morning News The solution came to the writer one evening: she should have an office. From Nobel Laureate Alice Munro, a brilliantly executed and revelatory story—one of the earliest published works of her career—in which simply finding a place to write turns out to be the hardest act of all. In “The Office,” a selection from her first short story collection, Alice Munro demonstrates the precise observation, straightforward prose style, and masterful technique hailed by John Updike, who wrote in the New York Times Book Review that “one must go back to Tolstoy and Chekhov . . . for comparable largeness.” “What a stunning, subtle and sympathetic explorer of the heart Munro is.”—Ron Hansen, The Washington Post A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection