"The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall Smith

I saw this little, slim volume all over the world trough my journeys - it seems it was there, in every bookshop, neatly placed next to its numerous sequels, inviting and popular. Of course, when something is popular, chances are I will stay away from it. But this time darn book was on my way so many times, in so many countries, in different translations and on different continents so finally I decided to give it a go. After all, most of the time what I avoided turned out to be just fine. The novel's title promised some good crime story - that is why I was a bit disappointed to realise that its a extremely simple book, with broadly painted characters who live simple lives and follow so-called "simple life philosophy".

"Hey, what is this" I said to myself "Dr.Doolitle?". I yelled to my friend "on the cover it says that British "Times" claimed this is book of the millennium!" She responded with laughter "and cover of my book says its a New York Times Nr.1 bestseller, so what!" We both roared, amused with this bombastic descriptions that unwittingly brought more damage than good - I understand that products needs to be marketed and sold but come on, the book of millennium should overshadow centuries worth of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dickens and Dostoevsky - even if we talk only about the genre of detective novels, Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K.Chesterton, Agatha Christie and Georges Simenon left some pretty big shoes to be filled. Not that anything is wrong with this little book - had I not known about the hype, it could have been pleasant, unpretentious read on a train, but this was just mildly amusing. Contrary to its title, its not so much about detectives and crimes but about simple people living simple life in Botswana - the fact that these novels (which I will not follow) are so popular around the world shows there are many readers who find this kind if "simple philosophy" very appealing ("don't worry too much and eat your pumpkin") - it is cute and heart-warming, but personally I found it too slight. Not because of its volume - Willa Carther was deeply moving and her book was just as slim, or Josephine Tey for example - I constantly had a gnawing feeling this is a children's book.