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| Heavenly Date and Other Flirtations | 
 enlarge | Author: Alexander Mccall Smith
Publisher: Canongate U.S.
Category: Book
List Price: $13.00
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $12.99 (100%)
New (48) Used (87) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 277088
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 1841955876
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781841955872
ASIN: 1841955876
Publication Date: August 17, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Good condition, wear from reading and use. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact and has some creases. The spine has signs of wear and creases. This copy may include "From the library of" labels, stickers or stamps and be an ex-library copy.
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Product Description
From the author of the massive New York Times best-selling series The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency comes a collection of short stories that have us visiting in on romantic encounters in exotic locales around the globe.
In these hilarious stories of perverse meetings, casual dates, and romantic encounters, we are enthralled, saddened, inspired, and surprised by the encounters we're made privy to. Alexander McCall Smith, a master of the unexpected and a seamless storyteller, revels in offering us the quirky complications inherent in entanglements that human beings engineer for themselves-entanglements that can be shocking, edifying, compulsive, complicated, and, sometimes, completely disastrous.
This is an exceptional collection of stories from an author whose wide audience delights in his extraordinary imagination and delicious insights into the endlessly fascinating peculiarities of the human condition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...
It's Okay - Definitely not His Best August 8, 2008
There's an old rule of thumb in publishing: when an author becomes popular and well regarded, stories that might not have made it beforehand suddenly become "good enough" and are published.
That's what we seem to have here. Some of the stories are good; all show touches of McCall Smith's writing talent; but none stand out.
If this is your first glance at a McCall Smith title, look elsewhere - nearly everything else he's done shows much tighter prose, characters and stories. If you're a fan of McCall Smith, then this is probably worth getting ... or at least giving to another fan.
 Well written and thought provoking January 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
These tales might seem out of character for readers familiar with The No. 1 Ladies Detective series. Smith imitates being an author of genre fiction by being accessible yet belies this superficial role by provoking thought in those who wish to think. There are very few writers who do this as successfully.
When Smith writes outside the bounds of genre fiction his devotees, who read him for his superb ability to write genre fiction, are going to be confused. The story Pretty Nice Date will be the most confusing. But I found it bizarre yet ultimately moral. The closing sequence shows the adult's concern about the boy's health, revealing his obliviousness to the boys spiritual and moral well being. Unsettling to be sure but certainly not morally neutral. One has to be willing to ponder some of these stories to get the meaning. Additionally, genre fiction readers tend to confuse the character a writer creates with the writer himself, a mistake that in this case is sure to provoke criticism of Smith. But it is a pretty silly mistake.
I hope Smith feels free to explore more diverse themes in future collections. He's a great writer and will reveal his best work if unfettered by undue consciousness of popular success.
 Popular Author leaves Botswana to glorify child prostitution October 29, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Don't buy it.
I enjoyed Alexander McCall Smith's dark and wry humor in the Dalhousie series and in his Portuguese Irregular Verbs series (as well as his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books) but I was so upset after reading this book I threw all of his others out.
The main problem is the second story, "Nice Little Date." While many have argued that it does not glorify child prostitution, I think that it does, in fact, do just that. The protagonist seems assured that he is not really hurting this street hardened child (who is probably 13 or 14 years old -- the man says, "She's 14, but only just."). He trolls a Portuguese town until a man approaches, offering the services of a very young girl; he takes the child out for a meal only on the man's encouragement; he takes the child back to the hotel room tells the child to remove her (his) clothing, without seeming to have any twinges of regret. His sexual desire for this child is explained in detail throughout the story.
The fact that he paid for a girl child and actually got a boy -- is the end of the story. No moral, nothing. In it we see the humanity and desire of the predator. We see his calculations, his enjoyment, while the child is flat -- a hardened street rat for whom this means nothing, according to the story. Only at the end do we glimpse that the child was actually forced, but there is no regret on the protagonist's part other than the fact that the child is the wrong sex.
How better could one glorify a violent act? I can think of no author who has done better at making what is a terrible crime towards children seem innocent, like -- a date. Even the title is disturbing.
I felt so disturbed by this story that I threw out all of my A.M. Smith books and will not purchase another, and I have a mind to send the story (with its myriad details about child prostitution) to Interpol. The last thing we need is a popular author writing about this subject as if it were just another quirky little date -- between a grown man and a 13-year-old child.
 From the gutter to Heaven... September 8, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
...thoughtful stories on the theme of dating. These are artfully written, with wonderfully full quick character sketches. I borrowed the book from the library. Since I find myself thinking about the stories often, I will buy it from Amazon someday. There is always more hidden in the words of McCall Smith.
I'm so apprehensive about violence in literature, that I was on edge during the first story, waiting for something horrible to happen. Now that I know the author better, I know I can trust him to write for the mind and soul, not for cheap thrills. The first story's gentle, good-natured, intelligent daters are often on my mind somehow.
The most controversial story (A Nice Little Date?) does not, as a reviewer here has perplexingly declared, glorify child prostitution. It is a touching, complex story, which shows that everyone concerned is human.
I accepted the mystical story as readily as I accepted the others. In fact it is very welcome to read a tale where an act of faith, however unbelievable, is taken seriously by the author.
Some of the stories were pretty funny. I laughed out loud at the psychologist's tales.
I also like the Ladies Detective series. Simply a different animal. Also I am enjoying the 44 Scotland series by the same author.
"terrible things can happen on dates..." June 7, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
All these stories are written with the perceptive understatement that McCall Smith readers have come to expect. But as other reviewers have pointed out, don't expect the sweet comfort of a Precious Ramotswe mystery.
Locales define some of the stories - Rhodesia (Bulawayo), Australia (Calwarra and Far North) - but the events described rise out of the surrounding landscape to become universal. Some are about dates, some about marriages, some about "relationships." Some are hilarious, some are tragic, but even the tragedies have their flashes of comedy (Doris Lessing situations as told by David Lodge). If you like black humor, quirky characters, and zany situations, there are several gems here you will enjoy. My favorite is Calwarra...
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