In today's post, regular contributor Heather Johnson (Storie delle Sorelle Book Club Blog) shares her book club's experience with a great book. I read this one a couple years back and really enjoyed it though never thought of it for a book club pick. Nice to see that Heather was thinking outside the box!
To get the summer off on the right foot my book club decided to read a lighter book this month: THE NO. 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY, by Alexander McCall Smith. This is the first in a series of books which follow the adventures of Precious Ramotswe, the first female detective in all of Botswana.
Unlike most detective stories, the focus of this book is not really solving the mysteries; it is rather a character driven book that focuses mainly on the person of Precious. We very much enjoyed talking about this strong, confident, and intelligent character. We discussed why we thought she was able to succeed, and what it was about her that made her a good – if somewhat non-traditional – detective. In addition, we questioned some of her choices and whether the author made them truly believable or not.
We spent some time talking about the portrayal of Botswana, since one member of our club had traveled extensively in Africa. The discussion leader for this meeting brought up the fact that the author has been criticized for glossing over the tumultuous history of the country. This led us to debate whether this was an oversight by the author or a yet another representation of Precious’s rosy outlook.
Many members had seen the HBO mini-series based on the Precious Ramotswe books and we discussed the fact that these characters translate wonderfully to the screen.
There were only four of us in attendance this month but our meeting was light and fun, which is just what we were hoping for to get us in the mood for summer.
-- Heather Johnson, Regular Contributor
