The Peppermint Tea Chronicles by Alexander McCall Smith (literary fiction)

Another nice installment of the 44 Scotland Street series — number 13. I enjoy every one of the books in McCall Smith’s series — I look forward to them as a treat.  McCall Smith is the master of exquisite usage of an enormous vocabulary. His writing is precise and insightful, and he wields his vocabulary in such a way as to make the nuance between words of similar meaning obvious.

His characters opine on subjects of private and public matters, and some of his “rants” are masterfully done. The paragraph on reading the news of the world on page 195 was worth the whole price of the book. I also loved his short treatise on “hold music” including this: “…although extensive research has revealed that the Flower Duet from Lakme is not only capable of soothing callers through delays of up to twenty minutes, but also has remarkable qualities in combating airsickness. That piece of music, purloined by British Airways as its theme tune, is suggestive of the soaring of both the human spirit and of aircraft — a happy coincidence for the airline with which it is identified.”