Always intrigued by thoughtful and expressive responses to situations surfacing in this Botswana set series.
Unique writing of Alexander Mccall Smith and excellent narration of Lysette Lecar offer an enjoyable experience.

“The Kalahari Typing School For Men”, our fourth trip to Botswana courtesy of the compassionate, insightful dramas and mysteries of Alexander McCall Smith, tends to receive four or five stars from all fans, including me. The previous volume only seemed to tie off threads to pave the way for subsequent novels. This 2002 combination of personal and mystery solving stories at last, has returned to a clear foundational focus. It included a male run detective agency. It illuminated not if women make better detectives than men but morality in business and what patrons get, when careers are chosen from the heart. We are served best by a doctor, nurse, dentist, or cook who wants to be there, for example.

Although I was impressed with Mma Makutsi’s running of Speedy Motors Garage when their offices merged, I was amazed by her supply & demand acumen in thinking of and obtaining free space and supplies for her typing school. This increase in her well deserved income also furnished two other great storylines: her interest in dating and that man’s intersection with one of Precious’s two detective cases. Her adopted children and fiancé hardly appeared but story fodder was ample.

Her second case concerned a reunion more than a mystery. Finding two people in her client’s past for the purpose of apologizing to them as a grown man, was a beautiful story. We see that doing the right thing and honouring people with respect, is in our hands anytime. This assignment was also lovely for Precious visiting a friend who is an inspiring woman to spend time with. Only in her thirties, Precious merits reviewer criticism for being preachy about people who do not use Botswana’s old standard of manners. However, I remain just as interested in seeing which pleasures her sequel brings.

I love this series!

I cannot get enough of this series. The characters quickly became familiar and likeable. I enjoy reading one of the books in the series after I finish a particularly heavier genre.

can i live in botswana? i'd really like to.

Series, but stand alone read; Actually read the large print version
This was a book club read. It was hard to get into the first two chapters, but after I became used to the writing style, it was an easy, quick read. Sweet characters, every day life at it's most excruciatingly hard, happy, struggling, and real. This was more a book about character, about work ethic, community, and redemption. Well polished characterization, some interesting moments and loved the sense of community that was in the village. Fun quick read.

In this 4th volume of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, there are many subplots. It seemed like while I was listening, there was not much work going on for the agency. When I got to the end, though, the many threads were tied together with a few left danging for the 5th book. I love travelling to Botswana via this series and will keep on reading. The audio books are so well done!

These books drive me crazy, but instead of talking about what I don't like about them, I want to say what I do like. I keep reading them for some reason, so I think it is about time I figure out why.

The first reason is that the author, clearly, has an affection for Botswana. He describes cattle in a way that makes me want to love cows. He describes a desert in way that makes me want to vacation there.

The second is that I can appreciate a book that isn't in a hurry, I read a lot of action/adventure books, so I like the way this book takes its time and concentrates on human interaction, but still respects the fact that there is a plot to developed.

There are many books in this series, so I'll discuss what I don't like, next time.

Reading these books I always wish I could live in Botswana myself. It seems like such a lovely place, and in this installment you really felt that. The mood and descriptions of the place really set the stage for a wonderful read.

these books are soothing, gentle with kind and polite people (even those who are clearly written as antagonist, they aren't written like dumpy people) who want to change things around them little by little. the investigation is almost a side plot but the characters and their motivations become the primary focus. they have struggles, of course, face rejection, opposition and are subjected to prejudice, but it doesn't stop them from pursuing something better and bigger and greater. i love the supporting characters in this, am sure they have back stories and am jumping somewhere in the middle but...whatever. I like them.

am sure i will repeat the same thought over and over again, but i guess being kind and polite and work for betterment is a thought worth repeating.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think Alexander McCall Smith made a sort of cameo in this book! Mma Ramotswe is looking at some photographs with a friend, and she sees a man in one of them, smiling, and asks who it is. Her friend says he is a nice man who stays with them sometimes, and writes books. "You would like him." "I'm sure I would." I giggled: I'm sure this is the author referencing himself!

But anyway: another delightful novel about Mma Ramotswe, her detective agency, and her friends. What I love about these books is that it isn't just some long murder mystery, it's a series of smaller mysteries, human mysteries: can you find this person for me, do you know where my husband is going at night? It's more real and more human. There is also the day-to-day drama of their lives: Mma Ramotswe, her fiance, the foster children, their friends. In this particular book, Mma Makutsi starts a typing school for men, and falls for one of her students, while Mma Ramotswe is busy on a most delicate case indeed. These books have a slow and dreamy quality, but they are quality, and the writin is beautiful and joyous to read.

Der vierte Band der Reihe kümmert sich in erster Linie um die Charakterentwicklung. Die zu lösenden Aufgaben stehen eher im Hintergrund und dienen eher dazu, die Figuren zu fordern und zu vertiefen. Wer also einen typischen Kriminalfall sucht, der sollte bei Mma Ramotswe sowieso eher geduldig sein. Dafür wartet McCall Smith wie immer mit viel Tiefgründigkeit und klugen Gedanken auf. Auch das Setting ist wie immer wunderbar dargestellt und trägt viel zur Herzlichkeit dieser Bücherreihe bei.

The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency books by Alexander McCall Smith are set in Botswana around the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency, set up by Precious Ramotswe or Mma Ramotswe, who has been through a bad marriage and then with the support of her father picks herself up. Later with the inheritance he leaves her, she buys a home and sets up the detective agency, the only one in Gaborone (or rather Botswana I think). The cases she takes up aren’t great mysteries, but smaller problems from errant husbands to missing people, and she uses her knowledge of human nature as well as Botswanan traditions and beliefs to resolve things. During the course of the series, she meets and becomes engaged to Mr J.L.B Maketone, who runs a garage, and acquires an assistant, Mma Grace Makutsi. I had read the first in this series years ago, a few years after it came out and enjoyed its gentle charm very much but somehow lost track after that and never read any more. Then a couple of years ago, a friend reminded me of them so I picked up a few from a second-hand shop, all from the earlier entries in the series (which now has 22 books), and have been reading them.

The Kalahari Typing School for Men (2002) is book 4 in the series. As this one opens, Mma Ramotswe is engaged to Mr J. L. B. Maketone and the detective agency is being run from the garage premises, with Mma Makutsi acting a both assistant detective and garage manager. Mma Ramotswe also has two children, Motholeli and Puso, from the ‘Orphan Farm’ living with her for Mr J.L.B. Maketone has agreed to foster them. The agency and garage are earning ok but not exceptionally well, and paying Mma Makutse the best they can. Mma Makutse is pressed for money having to send money home, take care of her brother who is ill, and pay the rent, and comes up with a scheme to earn some more. Having been the best student her own secretarial school ever had (having scored 97 per cent—no one came close), she decides to start typing classes for men. Alongside, Mma Ramotswe feels it is time Mma Makutsi too found love.

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency meanwhile is facing some competition, with a flashy new agency, the Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency run by an ex-CID man, which has fancy furniture and a fancier brochure and tries to harp on the fact that as a ’man’, he is better suited to the job. Mma Ramotswe is worried of course, but cases still come her way, a man shaken by recent events wants to make reparations for some wrongs he committed as a youth and hires her to find the people involved, while another woman wants help catching her errant husband (the second case has a small complication which the reader knows sooner than Mma Ramotswe). At the garage, the apprentices have become better behaved under the charge of Mma Makutsi and one has even found the church, but the two foster children are facing some problems at school and Mma Ramotswe must work out how best to address them.

The Kalahari Typing School for Men was, like whatever I have read in this series so far, a gentle and charming read, one that gives one a sense of peace and happiness reading even though it is all about everyday life. The characters face problems, cases and the people they meet reveal the good and bad side of things, there is cheating and hurt, and much else as in life, but still (like the Miss Read books in a way), pleasant, pleasant reading.

Mma Ramotswe is a wonderful character who learns from every experience. She has made mistakes in the past and lost much, but is strong and has picked herself up to start afresh. She understands people and is able to tackle them through that knowledge. I love how she uses both this understanding and traditions and beliefs from Botswana to solve the cases that come before her or indeed handle everyday matters, whether it is the apprentices or Mma Makutsi or Mr J.L.B. Maketone, himself.

My favourite part of the series though is the look it gives us into Botswanan life and culture, from forms of address to social interaction, food, property, daily life, the changes that the country is undergoing in terms of loss of or changes in beliefs and values, and much else including expressions used in speech which are peculiar to the country. These make a great way to get not only an introduction to the country but a real sense of it, and of life there.

With a great deal of charm, likeable characters, and also a lot of wisdom about life and people, these books always make for lovely reading.