Book: The Forgotten Affairs of Youth by Alexander McCall Smith

This is another in the author's Isabel Dalhousie series. Isabel is the owner and editor of a small magazine, a philosophical review. She has Charlie, Grace, Cat and Jamie, her son, housekeeper, niece and lover respectively. They live in Edinburgh in Scotland and I love this series. I always know that I am settling into a scene of contemporary gentility with interesting characters, a plot with a beginning and end, always with a few other minor threads running through the story.

In this book, Isabel becomes involved in the life of a visiting scholar from Australia, a woman who asks Isabel to help her find her biologic father. She moves through her days musing about nearly everything, but in a delightful, somewhat distracted way, asking questions we all ask ourselves. After all, she is a philosopher. She has her daily routines and a quiet comforting domesticity, along with whatever the wonderful Mr. Smith imagines for her.

And there is Scotland, specifically Edinburgh....obviously dear to the author, who makes it a place more dear and familiar with each addition to the Isabel Dalhousie series.