The Lost Art of Gratitude

Zusatztext Praise for the Isabel Dalhousie Series: "Alexander McCall Smith! a fine writer! paints his hometown of Edinburgh as indelibly as he captures the sunniness of Africa. We can almost feel the mists as we tread the cobblestones." — The Dallas Morning News "The literary equivalent of herbal tea and a cozy fire . . . Invite[s] readers into a world of kindness! gentility! and creature comforts. McCall Smith's Scotland [is] well worth future visits." — The New York Times "Alexander McCall Smith's assessments of fellow humans are piercing and profound. [His] depictions of Edinburgh are vivid and seamless . . . His fans are sure to embrace these moral peregrinations among the plaid." — San Francisco Chronicle Informationen zum Autor ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH is the author of the international phenomenon The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served on many national and international bodies concerned with bioethics. Klappentext Isabel and her son! Charlie! attend a birthday party! where she finds Minty Auchterlonie! the high-flying financier from "The Sunday Philosophy Club." When Minty confides to Isabel about the troubles at the investment bank she heads! Isabel wonders if Minty can be trusted. Chapter One IT WAS WHILE she was lying in bed that Isabel Dalhousie, philosopher and editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, thought about the things we do. Isabel was a light sleeper; Charlie, her eighteen-month-old son, slept deeply and, she was sure, contentedly; Jamie was somewhere in between. Yet Isabel had little difficulty in getting to sleep. Once she made up her mind to sleep, all that she had to do was to shut her eyes and, sure enough, she would drift off. The same could be done if she surfaced in the course of the night or in those melancholy small hours when both body and spirit could be at their lowest ebb. Then all she had to do was to tell herself that this was not the time to start thinking, and she would quickly return to sleep. She had wondered about the causes of her light sleeping and had spoken about it to a friend, a specialist in sleep disorders. She had not consulted him professionally, but had brought the matter up over dinner; not before the whole table, of course, but in the intimacy of the one-to-one conversation that people have with those sitting beside them. "I don't like to ask about medical things," she said. "But . . . ," he said. "Well, yes. But. You see, you doctors must dread being buttonholed by people who want to talk about their symptoms. There you are at a party and somebody says: I've been having these twinges of pain in my stomach . . ." "Have you?" "No, I haven't." He smiled. "The old cliché, you know. Somebody comes and says, A friend of mine has this rash, you see, and I wondered what it was. That sometimes happens. Doctors understand all about embarrassment, you know." Isabel nodded. "But it must annoy you—being asked about medical matters." He thought for a moment. " Nihil humanum mihi alienum est , if I may lapse into Latin. I don't set my mind against anything human. Doctors should subscribe to that, I think. Like priests." Isabel did not think the comparison quite fitting. "Priests do disapprove, don't they? Doctors don't—or shouldn't. You don't shake your head over your patients' behaviour, do you?" "If doctors see self-destructive behaviour, they might," he said. "If somebody comes in with chronic vascular disease, for example, and you smell the nicotine on his fingers, of course you're going to say something. Or a drinker comes in with liver problems. You're going to make it clear what's causing the problem." "But you don't ladle on the blame, do yo...

Product details

• Authors: Alexander McCall Smith
• Publisher: Random House USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 22.09.2009, delayed
• EAN: 9780375425141
• ISBN: 978-0-375-42514-1
• No. of pages: 288
• Series: Isabel Dalhousie Series; Isabel Dalhousie Series
• Subject: Fiction > Suspense