Alexander McCall Smith is the author of several popular series including the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, the Isabel Dalhousie books, and 44 Scotland Street stories. I think of his novels as gentle, humorous books that demonstrate the breadth of human nature, from selfish to saintly.

Pianos and Flowers is a compendium of short stories, each tale inspired by a photo from the archives of The Sunday Times newspaper. The pictures prompted Smith to pen anecdotes that range from slices of life to mini-biographies, and the narratives are touching, humorous, and surprising.

The collection is composed of 14 stories, some short and some long. I'll give examples of a few narratives, to provide a feel for the book. 🙂

⦿ Pianos and Flowers

A British brother and three sisters spend their childhood in Malaysia, then go home with mom, leaving dad behind to work. We see the unfortunate fate of British expats in Malaysia during WWII, and observe the youngsters growing up and getting on with their lives. The brother is expected to provide for his single sisters, so of course he'd like them to get married....and tries to help things along.

*****

⦿ Sphinx

A young woman called Margaret meets a nice gentleman, and they discover they both like to visit London's attraction, the Sphinx. The couple have a strong attraction and plan to meet again, but things go wrong. Margaret subsequently drifts into another relationship that's only lukewarm (for her), and expects to get a proposal. What happens next is a surprise.

****

⦿ Maternal Designs

An architect named Richard is at odds with his mother, who wanted him to go into a different - and more prestigious - line of work. Mom thinks architects just draw pictures, and doesn't understand the structural/engineering elements of construction. This has consequences that are both funny and unfortunate.

*****

⦿ Pogo Sticks and Man with Bicycle

Francis Crick and James Watson are struggling to understand the structure of DNA until boys having fun on pogo sticks provide a clue.

*****

⦿ Duty

Claire and Dotty are identical twins but Claire, being two minutes older, considers herself the boss of the siblings. As young adults Claire acquires a beau, and chivvies Dotty into meeting his friend. Things take an unexpected turn from there.

*****

⦿ Blackmail

Nell and Harry had good jobs until bad behavior got them fired without references. They're now streetsweepers, and like to chat about people they see during the workday. Nell is especially observant and notices a blackmailer who targets men who cheat on their wives. Nell and Harry take action, and it's hilarious.

*****

Other stories deal with two boys who have an attraction to one another; a 'before and after' commercial where a scrawny little fellow is paired with a pretty girl; an anthropologist who studies headhunters; an English professor who likes figures of speech called zeugmas; poor boys who have different experiences growing up; a woman concerned about her anxious husband; and more.

The book is entertaining and fun, highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley, Alexander McCall Smith, and Pantheon for a copy of the book.

PIANOS AND FLOWERS is a short story collection by Alexander McCall Smith.
A photograph from the Sunday Times archive inspires each of the stories. The photographs depict everyday people going about their daily lives. Alexander McCall Smith weaves interesting and entertaining stories around the black and white images.
While I found PIANO AND FLOWERS to be a bit a slow start once I got into the rhythm and style of the story telling I became fully engaged.
Thank you to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for access to the advanced digital edition.

An utterly charming book based on a delightful idea for inspiration. Each short story takes as its starting point an old photograph. McCall Smith knows nothing about the circumstances or the people. He constructs the story from what he sees.

This short book was so much fun. I hope he does more of these.

Thank you to the publisher and #NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The premise of the collection of short stories was imaginative - finding an old photo with no known context and building a story around that one snapshot in history. Alexander McCall Smith excels in creativity and diversity, taking readers around the world and into multiple different types of society and relationships. Some stories were more engaging than others; I particularly enjoyed “Sphinx.”

The Sunday Times asked author Alexander McCall Smith to write some short stories for the paper. He proposed that he would look through the newspaper’s photo archive, choose photos, and create stories for the people in the picture. Pianos and Flowers: Brief Encounters of the Romantic Kind is a delightful collection of photo-based stories. Some had been published previously in The Sunday Times, while others were written for this book.

As McCall Smith writes on his website: When you are with somebody you love the smallest, smallest things can be so important, so amusing because love transforms the world, everything.

Some writers would choose dramatic photos that lent themselves well for a sensationalistic approach. Others may have chosen photos of well-known people and shown a day-in-the-life moment. Fortunately, McCall Smith stuck with his strengths, choosing photos of non-remarkable people in seemingly non-remarkable situations and bringing characters to life. His other works have used rich adjectives to bring his characters and environment to life, and he does not disappoint here. Smith shows the same deftness describing these unknown figures as he did bringing Precious Ramotswe to life in his Ladies’ Detective Agency series.

Each of his stories offers a view of relationships. In stories like the titular Pianos and Flowers, he looks at the characters’ relationships over the course of a lifetime. Iron Jelloids is one of the stories that focuses on one day that led to a dramatic change in the lives of the characters. Maternal Design and Students look at family relationships and how they can impact career choices, while The Dwarf Tale-Teller of the Romanian Rom looks at the difficult choice between romance and careers. Not all of the stories have happy endings, but each has a satisfying ending.

Pianos and Flowers is a great choice for fans of Alexander McCall Smith. Anyone who enjoys reading short stories would enjoy this collection. It would be great for readers to carry with them to have a quick read. It is also easy to binge on multiple essays in one setting. Even though each story is inspired by different photographs, they are all infused with Alexander McCall Smith’s character-driven writing style. He publishes a story on his website each month for those who enjoy Pianos and Flowers and want to read more of his shorter works. I hope that Alexander McCall Smith continues to create and share such enjoyable collections.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a copy in exchange for my honest review.

I received a free digital advance review copy from Pantheon / Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Alexander McCall Smith is one of my go-to authors for gentle stories that mine relationships and events from the life-changing to the mundane for insights about human nature. Pianos and Flowers is his new collection of 14 short stories, each of which is imagined based on photographs from The Sunday Times' archive. Smith's stories not only encompass the specific moment in each photograph but also connect that moment to the entire arc of the characters/subjects' lives as he envisions them. I wish that I had been able to look more closely at the photos to see some of the details (though a couple of the stories do include close-up detail shots as well as the original photo), so this book may be better in print or in a format where enlarging the photos is possible. Each story stands alone so the book can be enjoyed in small increments. As Smith describes his work, "from the tiniest visual clue we can create a whole hinterland of experience -- of love, of hope, of simply being human." Pianos and Flowers is the perfect book to pick up when seeking comfort in our current challenging times.

EXCERPT: This is an extract from the title story, Pianos and Flowers.

She read constantly, almost a novel a day. She devoured Maugham's 'The Casuarina Tree', saying to herself, 'Yes, yes, that's exactly right,' although her friend wrote to her from Penang to say how angry they were that he had abused their hospitality by writing about them. 'That man,' she steamed, 'accepted the hospitality of a whole lot of people - some of whom you and I actually know, Francie - and then writes about them like that! As if adultery and back-biting were the only things we thought about from the moment we get out of bed - rarely our own bed, in Mr Maugham's view - until the time we turn the lights out. If you could hear some of the things they are saying about that man here, and his so-called secretary...'

ABOUT 'PIANOS AND FLOWERS': A delightful compendium of short stories inspired by images in the renowned photographic archive of The Sunday Times.

A picture can paint a thousand words, but what about a vintage photograph?

In 2015 Alexander McCall Smith wrote a book entitled Chance Developments: Unexpected Love Stories, in which he imagined the stories behind five chanced-upon black and white photographs. Who were those people, why were they smiling, what made them sad? He so enjoyed the experience that when The Sunday Times generously offered him access to their early 20th century photograph archive he jumped at the opportunity.

MY THOUGHTS: 14 short stories accompanied by the photos which inspired them. Some are clever, some are witty, some sad, some touching, and I found only one to be mundane.

There's one photo that particularly touched my heart, that of a group of boys, many in sixth or seventh hand shoes.

The stories themselves are varied in subject matter: there are stories of families, friendship, romance, obligation, business and travel. They are stories of every day people going about their lives in the 1800s, their trials and tribulations, the things that make them happy and sad.

A lovely book designed, I think, to be dipped into from time to time rather than be read in one sitting. There is certainly food for thought in more than one of these stories, and I am sure that I will be picking this book up again.

⭐⭐⭐.6

THE AUTHOR: Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the international phenomenon The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie Series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, and the 44 Scotland Street series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served on many national and international bodies concerned with bioethics. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and he was a law professor at the University of Botswana. He lives in Scotland.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Pianos and Flowers by Alexander McCall Smith for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

I requested a digital galley of this book because it employs an exercise I used when teaching creative writing. Unfortunately, this collection of vignettes based on old black-and-white photographs left me unimpressed.

The author used old photos and imagined the lives of the people captured. The subtitle suggests that there should be romance in each, but that is certainly not the case. For example, “Pogo Sticks and Man with Bicycle” imagines how Francis Crick and James Watson, while working on building a model of DNA, might have examined the spring in a pogo stick and seen a double helix. Another episode entitled “Urchins” imagines the lives of the boys captured in a 1920 photo; none of them has a love story of any note.

Because the pieces are so short, there is little depth. In “Urchins” the life stories of four boys are told. There are long sections of prose giving mundane details, so there is more background than actual action. I guess some of the vignettes could be considered charming, but they are forgettable.

Perhaps the stories are intended to be read one at a time. Because I read them in a couple of sittings, I noticed considerable overlap. Margaret in “Sphinx” has a landlady who is “the widow of a dentist” while Merlin in “Iron Jelloids” lives in the house of “a police sergeant’s widow.” Both landladies are very kind to their tenants. In “Blackmail” there’s a dishonest “financial clerk” and another one in “Pogo Sticks and Man with Bicycle.” Margaret in “Sphinx” is raised by an aunt who is a “district nurse” while in “Duty” “a theatre nurse” helps raise her brother’s twins once he is widowed. Student nurses appear in at least three stories. In “Sphinx” Margaret “drifted into something, in the way in which we are all capable of drifting into things, without any conscious assertion of will, any firm choice, because it is easy and we feel sorry for people and we cannot find a simple way of avoiding their emotional claims.” In “Duty” twins drift into relationships though they love someone else.

Coincidence and unbelievable events are used liberally. Three sisters play matchmakers to two teachers and then years later unknowingly appear in a photograph with these teachers? Tea with St. John’s Wort cures depression and iron pills bestow confidence? In a double ceremony, a minister marries the wrong women to the wrong men, but the brides and grooms don’t notice the mistake?

The author is prolific and popular, so my review will probably not reflect the views of the majority. I just expected more and was disappointed.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley. This book will be released in two days, on Tuesday, January 17.

‘A lot of people don’t notice the interesting things around them. They go through life thinking everything is very dull, and all the time it’s the opposite.’

I am a huge fan of the author, Alexander McCall Smith. He is a prolific and incredible writer with his No.1. Ladies Detective Agency being a firm favourite of mine. Therefore, I was intrigued to learn about his latest short story collection. Previously, Alexander had written for the Sunday Times when he was asked to take photos from their archive and imagine the lives behind some of the everyday people captured. He did not know who the people were or the context behind the photograph. It is something I am sure we are all guilty of, looking at old photos and wondering about the lives of the various people we gaze upon. Here, Alexander uses his incredible imagination, takes tiny visual clues and creates a fictional story based on that.

‘When we look in retrospect at the saliences of our lives, we realise, sometimes with astonishment, that this is how they are shaped: a single event; a chance word of advice; an apparently minor decision by another - any of these may dictate what happens to us and what we ourselves do.’

The stories vary but overall it is the pearls of wisdom I seek in Alexander’s writing. The detail and precision is incredulous with some of the stories being as profound as I expected. He has such a readable style and easily brings to life fictional dreams and desires from these still images. Alexander takes you for a brief interlude, a small snapshot, into what may have led the people to be at that place and time for the photograph to be taken. It makes for light and entertaining reading.

Whilst I enjoyed the concept for this book, I have to admit that I am not a fan of the short story. It probably worked as a newspaper feature and would provide a good ‘inbetween’ read as a book. However, I did not find myself fully engaged and that may be due to the narrative structure rather than the narrative voice. Alexander has a true gift for writing and to take such a simple stimulus and weave stories around it testifies to that.

‘Some lives are like that - they leave little trace, as unrecorded as were those countless lives led before writing and photography gave some degree of permanence to our human experience.’






This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

This was an interesting premise - writing stories based on old photos. In most cases, the stories worked for me. Some of them I loved, some of them I liked ok, and a few were just meh for me. But that's the beauty of a collection of short stories - there's something for everyone. The stories overall are unique and intriguing.

Our lives are measured in years, lived most fully in a handful of moments when we choose one door over another, one opportunity over the obvious choice, and adventure rather than the trusted, rewarding familiar. In the hands of Alexander McCall Smith, a simple photograph becomes the snapshot of relationship, situation, and emotion. His PIANOS AND FLOWERS is a magical collection of short stories prompted by varied black and white photographs. I was transported into an amazing variety of lives at that pivotal moment when everything changes. His compassionate, wise perspective is trademark exceptional, satisfying, and enduring -- I was genuinely sad when the book ended. A wonderful, short, lyrical collection from a master storyteller!

Do not approach this call Smith book like you do others. This isn’t the sunshiny optimistic books we’re used to from him. Read with an open mind. He’s created short stories based on newspaper photos. Readers will find themselves making personal connections with some, and others with not much relevance. This would be a book best read in paper version. Readers will want to flip back and forth to the photographs as they read the stories.

Alexander McCall Smith never disappoints, no matter where he takes the reader: to Edinburgh, with characters Isabel Dalhousie (a philosopher detective) or Bertie (a 6-year-old) and his neighbors; or to Botswana, with "Precious” Ramotswe and her No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.

In this book, we have literary snapshots, which McCall Smith based on actual historical photos. These vignettes are very different stories from the novels, more somber, less optimistic. Yet his trademark qualities shine through: whimsy, charm, honor, a sense of values, yet a thoroughly non-judgmental view of the characters we are observing, despite all their foibles.

Approach these stories with an open mind, and I think they will delight you. Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf-Doubleday for an advance readers copy.

Thank you Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday for access to this arc.

Like other reviewers, I'd not read any of his books but am familiar with the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency having seen the TV adaptation. I thought I'd jump into his actual writing with this book which promised delightful short stories. I'm sorry but none of them I've read so far are resonating with me and if I keep reading any more, I'll not want to try his books at all. The writing style is very good, the idea of how he came to write them is fascinating but the stories, alas, aren't for me. DNF

This is a lovely set of short stories inspired by photographs- it's perfect to keep by your side to read one per day. Some might resonate more than others, as is so often the case, but each is a small gem. I read this on kindle and think it might be better in hard copy, which would make viewing and flipping back to the photos easier. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC.

Pianos and Flowers: Brief Encounters of the Romantic Kind by Alexander McCall Smith
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Description from NetGalley...
“Pictures capture moments in time, presenting the viewer with a window into another life. But a picture can go only so far. Who are the people in the image? What are their fears? What are their dreams?

In the fourteen delightful tales in this collection, Alexander McCall Smith imagines the lives and loves of some of the everyday people pictured in these twentieth-century photographs. A young woman finds unexpected love while perusing Egyptian antiquities. A family is forever fractured when war comes to Penang, in colonial Malaysia. Iron Jelloid tablets help to reveal a young man’s inner strength. And twin sisters discover that it’s never too late to forge a new path—even when standing at the altar.”
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Thank you to @NetGalley @knopfca @doubledayca @doubledaybooks for the digital ARC in return for my honest review.
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My thoughts...
I purposely made this as my first read of 2021 because I am a big fan of Alexander McCall Smith. He is an auto-buy author for me. In this collection of short stories McCall Smith selected pictures from The Sunday Times archive and wrote fictional stories about the pictures. The stories were vignettes, giving us just a glimpse of the people, places and things in the pictures. Typical of his writing style, the stories revealed more about humanity and the philosophy of life. However, there were only a couple of stories that I really liked, the rest fell flat or just needed more to connect with the characters. It was not my favourite book of his, but I’m still a fan.

A collection of short story "vignettes"; 14 stories of friendship, hope, love and romance as told by creating a story from archival photographs of unknown people.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed some of the stories: (Pianos and Flowers was lovely) others fell flat and I was disinterested. Perhaps that has to do with the nature of being a short story.
The premise of using vintage photos to write the stories was wonderfully imaginative and I loved that aspect.
Thank you Netgalley and Pantheon/ Knopf Doubleday Publishing for the gifted E-arc in exchange for an honest review.

A charming little book of short stories based on fourteen photographs McCall Smith selected from the Sunday times early 20th century photo archives. He uses his marvellous imagination to bring us snapshots of imagined human lives, sad, happy, poignant and often funny. Totally delightful!

Love several series by the author but not this book😕

Having loved books from Alexander McCall Smith's Portuguese Irregular Verbs, Isabel Dalhousie and Scotland Street series, I had high expectations for this set of short stories. In actuality, I found them fairly flat and uninspiring. Some, like my favorite I'd Cry Buckets showed promise of a moving story but were too brief to fill in the fuller "picture" he had sketched. I did like that the old photos the stories were based upon led to tales that referred to different aspects of Britain's Imperial experience, in the Far East and during wartime in particular, and life in early 20th century Scotland. But, had this been my first taste of his work I don't believe I would have tried Alexander McCall Smith's series novels and that would have been a definite shame.

Thanks to Pantheon/Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for providing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest review.

Some of these were delightful [maybe 3 or 4], some where just plain depressing and almost all of them were way too short. The ones that I really loved were absolutely too short and left me wanting way more than I was given and ultimately [after several of them leaving me that way], that become more disappointing than something to enjoy. Overall, I am not sorry that I read this, but I would have loved several longer short stories more than just the breadcrumbs I got.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group/Pantheon for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.