Delightful...the novel's morai framework is lightly sketched... Above all, McCall Smith is a writer who celebrates kindness, in short supply in the world today.

The key to contentment in the Scottish climate is the right attitude to rain - just as in life the key to happiness lies in making the best of what you have.

Bruised in love by her faithless Irish husband, Isabel Dalhousie is a connoisseur of intimate moral issues. As a philosopher, she spends a great deal of her time considering the lives of those around her. There is her housekeeper Grace, whose future she must secure; her niece Cat, who is embarking on a dubious new relationship; and then there is Jamie, Cat's ex-boyfriend, a handsome young musician with whom Isabel is falling helplessly in love.

Intensely thoughtful and consistently entertaining, The Right Attitude to Rain is shot through with compassibn and unassuming intelligence.