These Are The Hands, a new album with words by Alexander McCall Smith and music composed by James Ross is now available. The music and the songs celebrate the presence of the sea in Scottish life, past and present. The sea defines Scotland’s character: it gives us our weather, our skies, and, even today, an important part of […]

A picture can paint a thousand words, but what about a vintage photograph? In 2015 Alexander McCall Smith wrote a book entitled Chance Developments: Unexpected Love Stories, in which he imagined the stories behind five chanced-upon black and white photographs. Who were those people, why were they smiling, what made them sad? He so enjoyed the experience that […]

A very good reason to celebrate: 2018 is the twentieth anniversary of publication of The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith—20 years of delightfully different books, page-after-page of humanity, kindness, humour and forgiveness, and in short, sheer joy. The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series started life as a short story written for friends but took hold […]