Mystery
Author Luncheon Events
Murder By The Book welcomes
today's finest crime novelists for the store's ongoing Mystery Author
Luncheon Series. Past speakers include: Michael Connelly,
Carolyn Hart, Janet Evanovich, James Patterson, Anne Perry, Laurie
R. King, Harlan Coben, Diane Mott Davidson, Nevada Barr, and
many more. Each takes place at The Briar Club (2603 Timmons
Lane @ Westheimer). Tickets are available only at Murder By The
Book (not at The Briar Club), until 3 days before each event or
until sold out. The authors' latest novel will be for sale
at each event. We only accept cash, check, or money order
for luncheon tickets.
Have
lunch & bush tea with
Alexander McCall Smith
Tuesday, April 27, 2010, 12:30 p.m.
$60 (includes lunch, a cup of bush tea, & a copy of The
Double Comfort Safari Club, the upcoming Mma. Ramotswe book)
Tickets on sale now! As
of Feb. 17, we have 75 tickets left. Purchase your tickets soon!
Alexander McCall Smith has written more than
60 books, including specialist academic titles, short story collections,
and a number of immensely popular children's books. Referred to
as our new P.G. Wodehouse, he is best known for his internationally
acclaimed "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series," which
rapidly rose to the top of the bestseller lists throughout the world.
The fifth novel in the series, The Full Cupboard of Life,
received the Saga Award for Wit. The series has now been translated
into 45 languages and has sold over 20 million copies worldwide.
The first episode of a film adaptation, directed by Anthony Minghella,
and produced by the Weinstein Company, premiered on HBO in March
2009. Another series, beginning with The Sunday Philosophy Club,
about an intriguing woman named Isabel Dalhousie, appeared in 2004
and immediately leapt onto national bestseller lists, as did sequels,
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate; The Right Attitude to Rain;
The Careful Use of Compliments; and The Comfort of
a Muddy Saturday. The sixth Dalhousie novel The Lost Art
of Gratitude (fall 2009). McCall Smith’s serial novel,
44 Scotland Street, was published in book form to great
acclaim in 2005, followed by Espresso Tales, Love Over Scotland,
The World According to Bertie and The Unbearable Lightness
of Scones. In late 2008, the serial novel, Corduroy Mansions,
depicting the lives of the inhabitants of a large Pimlico house,
began to be published and podcasted in 100 daily web episodes by
the UK’s Daily Telegraph prior to its hardcover release in
2009. Alexander McCall Smith published a solo novel, La’s
Orchestra Saves the World in December 2009.
In addition, McCall Smith’s delightful
German professor series -- Portuguese Irregular Verbs,
The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, and At the Villa
of Reduced Circumstances -- were published in the US in January
2005. He is also the author of several children’s books, including
the Akimbo series, about a boy in Africa, the Harriet Bean series,
the Max & Maddy series and The Perfect Hamburger and
other Delicious Stories. Pantheon has published Alexander McCall
Smith’s collection of African folktales,
The Girl Who Married a Lion. McCall Smith is also the author
of Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams, a contemporary
reworking of a beloved Celtic myth and Heavenly Date and Other
Flirtations,
a collection of short stories examining the mysteries of dating
and courtship.
McCall Smith was born in what is now Zimbabwe
and was educated there and in Scotland. He became a law professor
in Scotland, and it was in this role that he first returned to Africa
to work in Botswana, where he helped to set up a new law school
at the University of Botswana. For many years he was Professor of
Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh, and has been a visiting
professor at a number
of other universities elsewhere, including ones in Italy and the
United States. He is now a Professor Emeritus at the University
of Edinburgh.
In addition to his university work, McCall
Smith was for four years the vice-chairman of the Human Genetics
Commission of the UK, the chairman of the British Medical Journal
Ethics Committee, and a member of the International Bioethics Commission
of UNESCO. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including The
Crime Writers’ Association’s Dagger in the Library Award,
the United Kingdom’s Author of The Year Award in 2004 and
Sweden’s Martin Beck Award. In 2007 he was made a CBE for
his services to literature in the Queen’s New Year’s
Honor List. He holds honorary doctorates from 10 universities, most
recently from Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
TICKETS AVAILABLE SOON
FOR LAURIE R. KING (MAY 4) AND LEE
CHILD (MAY 21).
Feel free to e-mail us with any
questions about our luncheon events. Sign up for our weekly e-mail
newsletter here.
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