Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jun 2013
256 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
The rocking motion of the train as it speeds along, the sound of its wheels on the rails ... There's something special about this form of travel that makes for easy conversation, which is just what happens to the four strangers who meet in Trains and Lovers.
As they journey by rail from Edinburgh to London, the four travelers pass the time by sharing tales of trains that have changed their lives. A young, keen-eyed Scotsman recounts how he turned a friendship with a female coworker into a romance by spotting an anachronistic train in an eighteenth-century painting. An Australian woman shares how her parents fell in love and spent their life together running a railroad siding in the remote Australian Outback. A middle-aged American patron of the arts sees two young men saying goodbye in a train station and recalls his own youthful crush on another man. And a young Englishman describes how exiting his train at the wrong station allowed him to meet an intriguing woman whom he impulsively invited to dinner - and into his life.
Here is Alexander McCall Smith at his most enchanting, exploring the nature of love - and trains - in a collection of romantic, intertwined stories.
"A warmhearted, understated serving of comfort food." - Kirkus
"Subtle wit, leisurely pacing, copious references to W.H. Auden - the hallmarks of McCall Smith's storytelling are in full force here, as is his penchant for quiet vignettes. That's too bad, because the other story lines are less compelling than the evocative Australian scenes, which merit a full book of their own." - Library Journal
"The best thing McCall Smith has written so far … he is a virtuoso storyteller whose tales from the human heart remain very definitely on track." - The Scotsman
"McCall Smith's deceivingly simple prose style can be both disarming and deeply affecting ... That four strangers should meet and tell such compelling stories is highly unlikely, but such is McCall Smith's ability to draw us into his kindly world, disbelief is more than willingly suspended." - Sydney Morning Herald
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Alexander McCall Smith began the now highly successful 'No 1 Ladies Detective
Agency' series in 1996, after being inspired by the sight of a 'traditionally
built' Botswanan lady chasing down a chicken for a meal. The first book in
the series - 'The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency' was published in the UK
in 1998 but didn't arrive in the USA until 2001.
Known to his friends as Sandy, McCall Smith describes the Botswanans as 'genuinely courteous people' He knows Botswana well as he grew up there and also spent several years on the law faculty of the University of Botswana;
his volume on the legal system of Botswana (The Criminal Law of Botswana) remains
the definitive and in fact, only book on the subject.
In 2004 he published the first in a...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Alexander McCall Smith's Website
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