Shots of Espresso @ 44 Scotland Street, the heart of EDINBURGH

Espresso Tales (no. 2 in the 44 Scotland Street series) by Alexander McCall Smith

"Scotland Street occupies a busy, Bohemian corner of Edinburgh's New Town, where the old haute bourgeoisie finds itself having to rub shoulders with students, poets and portraitists. And number 44 has more than its fair share of the street's eccentrics and failures..." Alexander McCall Smith

I picked this book up to read before realising it is the second in an unintentional series about the inhabitants of 44 Scotland Street, Edinburgh. In the past I have picked up serial books out of sequence and have had difficulty really getting to know the characters. But I continued and was so pleased I did! It does not matter that you are not already familiar with the characters.

This novel is set in Edinburgh and if you know it you will recognise the street names and imagine the cafe where Big Lou will make you a coffee and have a conversation on a philosophical level you would never have dreamt of.

There’s a lot going on for the inhabitants of 44 Scotland Street but the ‘shot’ size chapters make it very manageable and in fact delightful to read. There is a variety of personalities that come alive from one ‘shot’ to the next. Some of them you warm to more than others. One in particular really irritated me, particularly about his views of his home town Crieff; a town I know and enjoy visiting.

Only a month ago I was in Comrie and visited the nissen huts in Cultybraggan, which were used as a prisoner of war camp and army training until 2004. The Comrie Development Trust is now the owner, with plans to make the site available for commercial use and build a Visitors Centre. I was delighted to see reference to this in the early ‘shots’.

Other characters I really warmed to, in particular a 6 year old named Bertie, he really found a place in my heart. He is sadly having a most peculiar upbringing, or maybe not, who am I to judge?  But he is eventually rescued by his father. There’s a wonderful 'shot' or two describing an enjoyable train journey and promises made.

You can picture the retired Ramsey Dunbarton reading aloud his memoirs to his dozing wife. She initially points out some inaccuracies but then decides to maybe let it lie.

Alexander McCall Smith in the preface says he did not find writing the book a chore, on the contrary it was a real pleasure. This is evident as you turn the pages and get to know believable personalities.

I galloped though this book, it was a delight to read, it made me laugh out loud in places too.  I will now seek out the first in the series, the novel that gave the series its title: 44 Scotland Street.

The series in order: 

1. 44 Scotland Street
2. Espresso Tales
3. Love Over Scotland
4. The World According to Bertie
5. The Unbearable Lightness of Scones
6. The Importance of Being Seven
7. Bertie Plays the Blues
8. Sunshine on Scotland Street

(And as a little aside, have you noticed how some of the later titles in the series take their inspiration from notable works of fiction? For example, The Unbearable Lightness of Scones is taken from The Unbearable Lightness of Being; The World according to Bertie from The World according to Garp?)

And if you would like to read more novels set in and evocative of Edinburgh, click here

Leah Mons says about The World According to Bertie: "Reading this book is like being with old friends and having a bit of a catch-up! Knowing Edinburgh as I do it is such fun to pick out the streets and imagine the characters walking up and down them as they go about their business. It really brings the city to life for me"

Ann and the TripFiction Team

Sex and the City (Milanese Style), or, Some Ponderings On Optimal Title Length for a Best-Selling Novel

The Divorced Lady's Companion to Living in Italy by Catherine McNamara, set in Milan.

Our review now appears on the new TripFiction website here

The Beauty of Murder in CAMBRIDGE, UK (a novel for cat lovers!)

The Beauty of Murder by AK Benedict  set in Cambridge

This post can now be found on the new TripFiction website on this link

"Tell me how we came to this" Novel set in PARIS

'Tell me how we came to this.’  The last line in what will be for me a memorable book.

The Emperor of Paris by C S Richardson is set in the early 1900s 

This post can now be found on the new TripFiction site here

Bibliophile code-breakers in San Francisco and NYC

 Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan set in San Francisco and NYC 

Our review is on the TripFiction site here

The Power of Perfume in books - a collection

Recently we have come across quite a few novels in which perfume is a significant feature, so we thought we would bring together a collection to stimulate and saturate the senses. Several genres feature, so take your pick, sniff out (sorry!) a good read! And of course, we would love it if our readers would add their favourite perfume-themed books via the Comments Box, as we are sure there are many more out there, we have simply started the ball rolling.... 

We would like to thank the readers at Mumsnet, who gave us their suggestions:
PoppadomPreach, FruminousBanderSnatch, KatyMac, SarahandFuck, thequeenmary

The Scent of Triumph by Jan Moran is set both in Paris and Grasse. Paris-born Danielle Bretancourt von Hoffman is a modern young woman with a natural gift. In the language of perfumery, she is a Nose, with the rare ability to recognize thousands of essences by memory.

The year is 1939, and on the day that England declares war on Germany, Danielle and her family are caught in the midst of a raging disaster sweeping across Europe.Her life takes a tragic turn when her husband and their only son are stranded behind enemy lines. Summoning her courage, she spies for the French resistance, but is forced to flee Europe with fragments of her family. Destitute, she mines her talents to create a magnificent perfume that captures the hearts of Hollywood stars, then gambles to win wealth and success as a couturier. 

The Perfume Garden by Kate Lord Brown is set in Valencia. High in the hills of Valencia, a 
forgotten house guards its secrets. Untouched since Franco's forces tore through Spain in 1936, the whitewashed walls have crumbled, the garden, laden with orange blossom, grown wild.

Emma Temple is the first to unlock its doors in seventy years. Guided by a series of letters and a key bequeathed in her mother's will, she has left her job as London's leading perfumier to restore this dilapidated villa to its former glory. It is the perfect retreat: a wilderness redolent with strange and exotic scents, heavy with the colours and sounds of a foreign time. But for her grandmother, Freya, a British nurse who stayed here during Spain's devastating civil war, Emma's new home evokes terrible memories. Our blogpost

Perfume by Patrick Suskind set in Paris and Le Midi. 
Survivor, genius, perfumer, killer: this is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. He is abandoned on the filthy streets of Paris as a child, but grows up to discover he has an extraordinary gift: a sense of smell more powerful than any other human's. Soon, he is creating the most sublime fragrances in all the city. Yet there is one odour he cannot capture. It is exquisite, magical: the scent of a young virgin. And to get it he must kill. And kill. And kill...

The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro is set in New York and Paris of the 1920s. One letter will turn newly-married Grace Munroe’s life upside down: ‘Our firm is handling the estate of the deceased Mrs Eva D’Orsey and it is our duty to inform you that you are named as the chief beneficiary in her will. We request your presence at our offices at your earliest convenience, so that we may go through the details of your inheritance.’
There is only one problem. Grace has never heard of Eva D’Orsey.
So begins a journey which leads Grace through the streets of Paris and into the seductive world of perfumers and their muses. An abandoned perfume shop on the Left Bank will lead her to unravel the heartbreaking story of her mysterious benefactor, an extraordinary woman who bewitched high society in 1920s New York and Paris.

Wildest Dreams by Jennifer Blake: Two extraordinary women - 150 years apart - search Europe for a special perfume, and their own secret hearts for the thing that matters most....
The perfume is legendary, once worn by Cleopatra and Empress Josephine -- and made in New Orleans for more than 150 years. Its history and enthralling scent render it priceless, and while many are determined to exploit it, Joletta Caressa's beloved grandmother, Violet, took its secret formula with her when she died.
Now Joletta must reconstruct it using the journals written by Violet, who brought the perfume home from a Victorian-era grand tour of Europe. The code is in the yellowed pages, tied to the places Violet visited -- London, Paris, the Swiss Alps, Venice, and a secluded garden in the Italian countryside.

Perfume of Paradise by Jennifer Blake set in the Caribbean and New Orleans - Hot, sultry passion blooms on a lush Caribbean island, but is it real? The drums warn of trouble on the island of Saint-Domingue as Elene prepares to be wed to a groom she barely knows. To soothe her fears, her servant Devota gives her a special voodoo perfume said to captivate any man, insuring his lifelong devotion. But a slave uprising interrupts the wedding vows.Sea Captain Ryan Bayard rescues the fascinating bride-to-be and retreats to safety with her. Trapped together in close quarters as death and destruction rage outside, the scent of her perfume is maddening. The attraction is so strong Ryan cannot resist making passionate love to her.

In non fiction we feature Chandler Burr's account to find the perfect perfume in The Perfect Scent. Follow the creation in NYC of the scent 'Lovely' for Sarah Jessica Parker. And in Paris follow how Hermes sets about creating 'Un Jardin sur le Nil' - facts abound (170,000 bottles of fragrance are sold in France every day, for example). A revelation of the top companies who own other companies, the real inside track.









The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber has a nod to the perfumier. It is the story of a well-read London prostitute named Sugar, who spends her free hours composing a violent, pornographic screed against men. Michel Faber's dazzling second novel dares to go where George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and the works of Charles Dickens could not. We learn about the positions and orifices that Sugar and her clients favour, about her lingering skin condition, and about the suspect ingredients of her prophylactic douches. Still, Sugar believes she can make a better life for herself.When she is taken up by a wealthy man, the perfumer William Rackham, her wings are clipped and she must balance financial security against the obvious servitude of her position. 


Click on the covers to find our more about each book. 

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Tina and The TripFiction Team