A Distant View of Everything
Written by Alexander McCall Smith
Narrated by Davina Porter
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the award-winning series The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and he now devotes his time to the writing of fiction, including the 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie series. He is the author of over eighty books on a wide array of subjects, and his work has been translated into forty-six languages. Before becoming a full-time writer he was for many years Professor of Medical Law at Edinburgh.
More audiobooks from Alexander Mc Call Smith
My Italian Bulldozer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Private Life of Spies and The Exquisite Art of Getting Even: Stories of Espionage and Revenge Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Perfect Passion Company Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Pianos and Flowers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to A Distant View of Everything
Titles in the series (16)
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sunday Philosophy Club Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Careful Use of Compliments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Right Attitude to Rain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Charming Quirks of Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Art of Gratitude Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Distant View of Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgotten Affairs of Youth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Novel Habits of Happiness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quiet Side of Passion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Geometry of Holding Hands Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sweet, Thoughtful Valentine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sweet Remnants of Summer Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5At the Reunion Buffet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related audiobooks
The Quiet Side of Passion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sweet, Thoughtful Valentine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Novel Habits of Happiness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Geometry of Holding Hands Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgotten Affairs of Youth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Right Attitude to Rain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Charming Quirks of Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friends, Lovers, Chocolate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chimney Sweeper's Boy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At the Reunion Buffet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Careful Use of Compliments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Art of Gratitude Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Promise of Ankles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Espresso Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sunshine on Scotland Street Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sweet Remnants of Summer Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Time of Love and Tartan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chance Developments: Unexpected Love Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Over Scotland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Importance of Being Seven Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Corduroy Mansions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Conspiracy of Friends Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World According to Bertie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Peppermint Tea Chronicles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love in the Time of Bertie Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bertie Plays the Blues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forever Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Heavenly Date: And Other Flirtations Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Mystery For You
If She Knew (A Kate Wise Mystery—Book 1) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hit and Run Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifth Suspect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Did I Kill You?: A Thriller Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One for the Money Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crossroad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Smuggler's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Listen for the Lie: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When No One Is Watching: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finlay Donovan Is Killing It: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Lies in the Woods: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Still Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tell No One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Extraordinary Impossible Crimes and Puzzling Deaths: The Best New Original Stories of the Genre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Altered Carbon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mother-Daughter Murder Night: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Word is Murder: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unexpected Guest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ordinary Grace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Tender Land Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The River We Remember: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silence of the Lambs: 25th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crooked House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Sherlock Holmes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One for the Money: A Stephanie Plum Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for A Distant View of Everything
70 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Delightful and exasperating. McCall Smith is a keen and tireless observer of human nature, and absolute Grandmaster in the art of digression. Those who crave progression will cringe. As Isabel says, there will be another one, because... that’s what it is.
Come on: be kind! - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5My Isabel does ramble on doesn't she? I may not have been in the mood to read this book. I just could not get into it and did not find it very stimulating.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Isabel and Jamie have a new baby, another boy, named Magnus. They and their housekeeper, Grace, are thrilled. Their older boy, Charlie, not so much. He's certain he can come up with good arguments for excluding Magnus from the family!
But that's just a normal parenting challenge, and they'll cope as most parents do. Bigger puzzles include Cat's new part-time shop-assistant, Peg, whom Cat seems unusually enthusiastic about. Where did Cat meet her? Why is she so vague about her background?
Isabel's own puzzle, brought to her by an old school friend, concerns a man whom she has introduced to a friend of hers, whom she now fears may be after the friend's money rather than true love. In fact, she has heard that he may be a man who routinely seduces women into parting with their money. This is, of course, not really Isabel's puzzle, but her school friend Bea's, but Isabel, despite Jamie's warning against getting involved where she doesn't need to, can't help taking it on when Bea brings it to her.
Meanwhile, Jamie has his own secret, that he finds difficult to share with Isabel. He's visited his doctor...
This latest entry in the series is, as always, a visit with old friends, including Brother Fox, and the further growth and working out of the relationships among Isabel, Jamie, and those closest to them. I found it, as always, altogether quietly enjoyable.
Recommended.
I bought this audiobook. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A pleasant read in an ongoing series (#11), thin plot but some wonderful lines.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The 11th installment of the Sunday Philosophy Club is here. Some things change, new baby Magnus and new deli employee Peg, while more things stay the same, Isabelle salivating over Jamie, bossy Grace the housekeeper, crazy Cat at the deli, sullen Eddie, and last but not least, an appearance by brother fox. In this outing Isabelle is asked to meddle in or rather investigate in the life of a doctor who may be a grifter. Although I have a fondness for the series this novel began to irk me. While having a conversation with a friend Bea, every time Bea spoke, it launched another tangent off in Isabelle's head making the passage really annoying to follow. It was comic relief when Eddie finally called Isabelle out on her habit of thinking of something else and smiling when talking to a person. That aside I have become invested in the characters over the course of 11 novels. I always look forward to a visit to Edinburgh and I always get a gem of wisdom out of the novel. In this book it is the idea that we have to be careful how we talk to our friends. One rebuke can undo a thousand positive interactions and end the friendship. Well said Mr. McCall Smith.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I do love Isabel Dalhousie, the philosopher by profession and the protagonist of this series by McCall Smith, but this installment seemed a bit simplistic and lukewarm and sugary, and maybe a tad moralistic as well. But as usual with this author, there is always a quote or two (or more!) that is worth repeating in each of his books, and here is one on how Isabel considers the topic of "the divine": "... she felt there was something there - some force, some principle, that lay beyond our understanding but that we sensed and that, crucially, we needed. The identity one gave to that did not matter too much, although the clutter with which we surrounded it did. Some of that clutter was downright poisonous, insisting that there was only one way of recognizing the divine, that all other views of it were simply wrong." Not a totally new notion but I thought it was nicely put...
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Delightful and undemanding, as this series always has been. Nor is there anything wrong with an "undemanding" read. Is this really the eleventh in the series? Where does the time go? A philosophical question for Isabel to ponder, perhaps?