44 Scotland Street

posted by Bunnery on Fri 16th Mar, 07 at 18:29:11

Okay - first of all a confession. I haven't actually read this book. I just listened to someone reading it to me via the magic of CD. It was Blythe Duff - who is an actress who is regularly in Taggart. (Usually she is saying "There's been a murrrrda")

Also - another confession, I had been resisting reading any books by Alexander McCall Smith. His No.1 Ladies Detective Agency and other titles seemed a little twee. Ha! I should know better than to judge a book by its cover.

44 Scotland Street is wonderful!! 

It concerns the lives a group of people who all happen to live in the same block of flats in a real street in Edinburgh. The most fascinating of these is Dominica, the anthropologist who used to study feral children in India and now lives in a book-filled flat, spending her time with artists and writers, occasionally editing a journal in between concerts and eating out.

There is Bruce, in the flat across the hallway, a narcissistic male with a penchant for clove-scented hair gel who feels that his true calling is not surveying, but the wine trade.

Pat is the impressionable newcomer who shares his flat, and falls under his spell, but will she find out his real nature before it is too late? She isn't kept too busy at the art gallery where she works for failed businessman Matthew, as they rarely have customers. Until, that is, they discover that one of their paintings could possibly be a Peplow and worth a fortune. From that day on a rather strange chain of events lead to a surprising conclusion.

The pushy parents downstairs encourage their "wee Bertie" to learn the saxophone and Italian simultaneously, before he even gets to school. All he wants to do is play with trains and have a real friend. It is not until he writes that his nursery teacher is a cow - in Italian - on the toilet wall does he get the chance.

Originally this was serialised in The Scotsman - just like Dickens used to write. The characters are funny,sad and ridiculous in equal porportions and the description of the South Edinburgh Conservative Association Ball is one of the funniest things I've heard.

I'd recommend this to you - and I intend to search out all Mr McCall Smith's other works and read them myself :-) 

Anyone got any suggestions as to which I should start with? 

Cryptonomicon

posted by Bunnery on Fri 2nd Feb, 07 at 18:40:00

Well I think if you are going to start you should start big! This novel is BIG - 918 pages (if you count the fascinating appendix that explains the Solitaire Encryption Algorithm) No - come back - it is really interesting! The whole book is about information - and we are all in the business of information, aren't we?

I only read this book as it had been mentioned in the current arg Perplex City- it was referred to one one of the puzzle cards.

It is really two parallel stories which come together at the end. One concerns the fascinating struggle that went on at Bletchley Park to break the Nazi Enigma code and all that this entailed for those involved in it - on both sides. We get the U-Boat perspective too as well as Turing's race against time to build his machine. The way that Cryptography cost and saved many lives is explored in great depth - with a whole host of characters and their stories. There are some harrowing war scenes scattered throughout. It certainly made me want to know more about Bletchley - and visit there very soon! http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/

The modern day story also concerns encryption, and the need to find an unbreakable code system in these days of computers and lightening speed technology. Randy (snicker) is the hero of the story, a hacker and former role-playing games fanatic, with a penchant for Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal, who is the partner in a high tech company who want to provide a safe haven for digital currency for various shady characters and governments. There is a menacing rival (enemy?) with the chilling pseudonym of "the dentist" - strikes chills into any soul. Can they reach their goal - without being hit by yet another tortuous and soul-destroying lawsuit that would decimate their business yet again? You have to play clever in this game.

Then there are the anonymous emails Randy gets from the wellknown "Secret Admirers Club" - seems you have to be a very talented hacker to get their attention - and of course the love-interest in the form of a (possibly) lesbian diver America Shaftoe (daughter of the famous Bobby).Their encounters are not exactly romantic - but they seem to get it on okay by the end :-)

This is a huge and sprawling novel and to tell you the truth is it hard to keep track of everyone and just what is happening and where and even when, especially if you've put it down for a couple of days. But it is also fascinating, full of amazing facts and quirky characters and above all - it pretty funny a lot of the time. Try it - I dare you. You are bound to find something in there that will capture your imagination and interest - and make you want to know more!

Last edited: Sun 4th Feb, 07 at 19:20:14