The Kalahari Typing School for Men

Rating:
Summary: The Second Best Book in the Series
Review: I found this book the second best book in the series of the Number 1 Lady's Dectective Agency. It is quaint and touching. It deals with modern issues solved with age old respect and dignity.

Rating:
Summary: Read the entire series!
Review: People often recommend books to me when they realize how much I read, and most recommendations are not to my taste. But I am forever grateful to the person to recommended these books to me! I have read them all, and I waited with anticipation for each new book to come out. The stories are so sweet, wise, affirming, and touching, and the writing so simply poetic! I have really enjoyed getting to know Precious and her friends and clients. I gave one of the books to my mother, and she called me to request that I get the rest of them for her! She marvels that such a story was written by a white man, but she has become a fan nevertheless. I hope that you will be, too.

Rating:
Summary: A Wayside Stop in Paradise
Review: I'm a neophyte to this series. I guess I walked into the middle of the party, since The Typing School is number 4 of 7, to date. This book was easy reading, comforting, polite, and harking back to another less nasty age of human interaction. No grisly murders or inhuman brutality going on here. Not much crime either. But we have a strong moral compass monitoring the daily melodramas of life in the well-drawn person of Precious Romotswe, and we have an exotic backdrop of Botswana, which is described with precision as a lovely wayside stop in paradise that is slowly caving in to the vagaries of "modern" behavior (read rudeness).
I really liked the Typing School and recommend it as a pleasant resting place between more meaty fare. I also can see how indulging in such bon mots and straightforward writing found here can become habit-forming.

Rating:
Summary: Love Comes to Mma Makutsi!
Review: In this hilarious and yet touching addition to the Number One Ladies' Detective Agency series, the ultra-proper and ultra-serious Mma Makutsi, she of the very large glasses and formidable secretarial powers, has Met A Man! As devotees of the series know, Mma Makutsi is fast approaching that age where men no longer want to marry, and she has not been lucky in love.

Will this time be different? Or...as the reader and Mma Ramotswe fear...has the very careful Mma Makutsi been caught in the cluthes of a Bad Man?

That's only one of the connundrums in this highly entertaining book, that finds Precious Ramotswe still unmarried, still solving mysteries, and strained to her last nerve by a male detective who is trying to usurp her business.

Absolutely a gem from page one to the end. This is simply a series NOT to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: I liked it.
Review: "The Kalahari Typing School for Men" belongs to the category of feel-good, heartwarming, inspirational and life-affirming fiction. Reading it reminds me of books of similar genre such as "The Alchemist". But what sets it apart from the rest are its simple yet powerful writing, unique suburban setting in Botswana Africa and captivating detective storyline charted forward by Precious Ramotswe. The characterization of Precious Romatswe is so effectively done that the reader genuinely feels for her, thinks like her and connects with her. Plot aside, what I find so refreshing in this book is the nostalgic feel for the old simple way of life in Botswana when foreign influences were kept to a minimal and people upheld morals and traditional values.

The novel sends an upliftingly positive message to the readers and incorporates various insights on life, that are universally true and equally relevant, be it in Africa, the West, Japan, China or Southeast Asia. One such insight that remains etched in my mind is, "... it is possible to change the world, if one is determined enough, and if one sees with sufficient clarity just what it is that has to be changed". In a nutshell, this book successfully integrates humour with solemnness. You will undoubtedly crave for more in this series of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.

Rating:
Summary: Short on detecting, long on relationships.
Review: This fourth book in the series brings not a heck of a lot of detective work, and none of the astute problem-solving that made book one a literary treasure.

The main attractions this time are the opening of a rival detective agency powered by testosterone, the launching of a typing school for men powered by girl power, a long overdue apology powered by guilt, and at long last, a love interest for Mma. Makutsi, powered by hair grease and slime.

The author takes us a few levels deeper into the characters this time, and the result is a rich African brew, ideal for slow lazy sipping under a shady tree with a gentle breeze ruffling the pages, and of course a hot cup of bush tea.

Not ground breaking or earth shattering, but a very pleasant read anyway.

Amanda Richards, November 23, 2004

Rating:
Summary: Strong entry in strong series
Review: THE NO.1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY was such an original and winning debut, that the subsequent novels in the series at best can only live up to it. There is no matching the surprises with which that first book was loaded, especially in terms of its characters, its setting, its wonderful voice and wit, its story structure. The good news is that Alexander McCall Smith does not betray what he has set up and he continues to use it to good effect in the 4th volume, THE KALAHARI TYPING SCHOOL FOR MEN.

For the uninitiated, this is a series set in Botswana, Africa, in which the estimable Mma Precious Ramotswe has set up a detective agency. This is not your standard mystery formula. The series relies more on the puzzles of human interactions and weaknesses in a traditional society that is rapidly adapting the first world frame of mind. This time around, Mma Ramotswe tangles with slick competition, while her assistant, the surprising Mma Makutsi, takes a more central role. The various strands of stories come together with Dickensian coincidences, but the author has already snatched your disbelief at the door so you don't care. THE KALAHARI TYPING SCHOOL has its comic moments which are not at odds with its wise reflections. My only criticism of this volume is that the author does not devote the time to exploring his original characters, Mma Ramotswe or her fiancé, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, that he gives to Mma Makutsi. He has recovered the deeper sense of the country that went missing in MORALITY FOR BEAUTIFUL GIRLS, but not to the depth of the first book in the series.


Rating:
Summary: Another in the Precious Ramotswe series
Review: This is the fourth book in The No. 1 Ladies Detective Novel series, featuring the only private detective in Gabarone, Botswana, a woman named Precious Ramotswe. Mma (Mrs. in the local language, Motswana) Ramotswe is a "traditionally-built" woman with an extra helping of common sense who decided to be a private detective, and bought a textbook which taught her how. She's now hired a secretary, Mma Makutsi, who's also traditionally-built, and somewhat disappointed that she doesn't get high-paying work because, though she scored a 97% score on the graduation test at the secretarial college, she's not glamorous-looking. Mma Ramotswe is engaged to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, who is a reliable chap if a bit dull.

In the first two installments of this series, there were several detective plots in each book. Each of the plots involved someone who had a difficulty and hired Mma Ramotswe to deal with it somehow. In the third book, there was less mystery, and more about the characters and their lives. This fourth book involves more mystery than the third, but there's also a good deal about the characters, as Mma Makutsi decides to teach typing in her spare time (hence the title) and dates one of her students, and Mma Ramotswe has to deal with rebelliousness from her foster children. The mysteries that are in the plot are the usual thing: typical human-interest problems that Mma Ramotswe can deal with by giving some sage advice.

This whole series, so far, is wonderful. The books aren't lengthy or over-written, and the characters are refreshingly unsophisticated and sincere. The author has a wonderful ability to convey the citizens of a former British colony in terms of their nature and character. They're simple country people, proud and intelligent, with a simple dignity that's at times faintly ridiculous, and they're unconcerned with other people in other lands of whom they know little. It's a wonderful series, and this book fits right in after the first three.

Rating:
Summary: good but left me wanting more too soon
Review: The book picks up where the third installment left us, the faithful readers of this great series. However, the author fails to clue is in to what depression it was that Matekoni had. Makutsis begins a typing school for men for extra money and it is a hit.

Another clever book by McCall but really thought there were parts missing that would have helped the reader end the book better.

Rating:
Summary: "I miss people talking about very small things."
Review: Mma Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency in Gaborone, is a much-respected, traditional woman (of "traditional size") who honors the customs of Botswana and tries to solve problems for her clients the "traditional" way--through her broad network of friends and family with whom she can sit down, drink bush tea, and "talk about very small things," as she searches for clues. She is a warm and happy woman of good sense, and her detective agency is a huge success because of her discretion and care for her clients' feelings.

In this novel, full of gentle humor and wisdom, Mma Ramotswe deals with two clients, one of whom committed a minor crime many years ago and for which he now wants to make amends, and one of whom is worried about a philandering husband. Both cases require the utmost in tact and sensitivity. Mma Ramotswe is also concerned with some personal matters. A rival detective agency, run by an aggressive man, opens an office in Gaborone to great fanfare, and he publicly demeans the #1 Ladies Detective Agency in a news feature. Mma Ramotswe's fiancé, Mr. J. L. B. Matakone still has not set a wedding date, though he clearly loves her, and one of the young orphans she and Mr. J. L. B. Matakone are mentoring, begins to have serious behavior problems. In addition, Mma Makutsi, Mma Ramotswe's assistant, who is barely making ends meet with her current jobs, decides to open a typing school for men after work. Mma Makutsi soon falls in love with one of her students, someone Mma Ramotswe finds inappropriate.

Domestic issues and human relationships, rather than exciting plot lines, keep the focus on the characters--beautifully drawn, sometimes flawed, and always forgiven their faults. In a pace as relaxed as life in Botswana, author Alexander McCall Smith recreates the colorful everyday lives of these ordinary people, who treasure friendships, treat each other with respect, and possess inherent good sense. In simple, direct prose filled with homely details, the author celebrates a traditional lifestyle and its values during a time in which change may become inevitable. A warm, relaxing read, filled with the joy of life. Mary Whipple