"The Unbearable Lightness of Scones" by Alexander McCall Smith

The transatlantic cousin to Armistead Maupin’s Tales of a City series returns with an airy update on the eclectic residents of the 44 Scotland Street series. The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (44 Scotland Street)  is an ideal book for a long flight, a busy schedule or the avid fan. Like a letter from a distant cousin, it can be consumed in one sitting or easily put down and picked back up again without really losing one’s place.

Much like Maupin’s tales, which started as a newspaper serialization in the San Francisco Chronicle, McCall Smith’s story follows the loose connections and changing lives of residents of Edinburgh’s New Town. And just as Maupin’s novels became a cultural touch point and crossover success, so too has 44 Scotland Street. The series continues to be published first as a daily serial in The Scotsman, Edinburgh’s paper, and has sold more than one million copies, to date. Not bad, considering that The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series is the author’s day job.

McCall Smith writes with a relaxed hand of the epiphanies and punishments of daily life of now-familiar faces. Misplaced teacups, errant litters of puppies and surprise breakups are the means by which various characters discover they know less about others and themselves than they’d previously supposed.

No truly dire circumstance threatens our re-found friends but miscommunications abound as they continue to interact and form new bonds. The focus of The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (44 Scotland Street) reveals Bertie is still struggling with his domineering mother; Matthew is starting married life and Domenica is trying to find a worthwhile pursuit in her own backyard.

Yet speaking for her, McCall Smith owns that he’s already at the task. As he has her note, “I think there’s something going on in Edinburgh. There’s an invisible city just under the surface. Every so often we get a glimpse of it; somebody makes an unguarded remark…What we anthropologists would call a realm of social meaning.” And if the author’s prolific pen is any gauge, we’ll be getting many more glimpses to come.