This first novel in Alexander McCall Smith’s widely acclaimed The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to “help people with problems in their lives.” Immediately upon setting... read more
Mma Precious Ramotswe moves to Gabarone to open a detective agency. She has a reference book, some money her father left her and a great deal of good sense. She approaches each case with a sense of zest and flair that most other detectives do not bring. This is not a shadowy, dark noir... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
“Love was a form of blindness that closed the eyes to the most glaring faults.”Obed Ramotswe
“He looked at her in the darkness, at this woman who was everything to him - mother, Africa, wisdom, understanding, good things to eat, pumpkinds, chicken, the smell of sweet cattle breath, the white sky across the endless, endless bush, and the giraffe that cried, giving its tears for women to daub on their baskets; O Botswana, my country, my place.”Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni
“He said nothing. There were times when you simply has to speak, or you would have your lifetime ahead to regret not speaking. But everytime he tried to speka to her of what was in his heart, he had failed.”Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni
“I love all the people whom God made, but I especially know how to love the people who live in this place”Mma Ramotswe
“What use was it having all that money if you could never sit still or just watch your cattle eating grass?”Mma Ramotswe
every man has a map in his heart of his own country and that the heart will never allow you to forget this map.Highlighted by 121 Kindle customers
You can go through life and make new friends every year—every month practically—but there was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years. Those are the ones in which we are bound to one another with hoops of steel.Highlighted by 101 Kindle customers
That is the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.Highlighted by 91 Kindle customers
The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing. That’s how most people thought.Highlighted by 89 Kindle customers
“We are the ones who first ploughed the earth when Modise (God) made it,” ran an old Setswana poem. “We were the ones who made the food. We are the ones who look after the men when they are little boys, when they are young men, and when they are old and about to die. We are always there. But we are just women, and nobody sees us.”Highlighted by 75 Kindle customers
It was curious how some people had a highly developed sense of guilt, she thought, while others had none. Some people would agonise over minor slips or mistakes on their part, while others would feel quite unmoved by their own gross acts of betrayal or dishonesty.Highlighted by 67 Kindle customers
How sorry she felt for white people, who couldn’t do any of this, and who were always dashing around and worrying themselves over things that were going to happen anyway. What use was it having all that money if you could never sit still or just watch your cattle eating grass? None, in her view; none at all, and yet they did not know it. Every so often you met a white person who understood, who realised how things really were; but these people were few and far between and the other white people often treated them with suspicion.Highlighted by 60 Kindle customers
I am just a tiny person in Africa, but there is a place for me, and for everybody, to sit down on this earth and touch it and call it their own.Highlighted by 59 Kindle customers
love was a form of blindness that closed the eyes to the most glaring faults.Highlighted by 58 Kindle customers
She felt terribly sorry for people who suffered from constipation, and she knew that there were many who did. There were probably enough of them to form a political party—with a chance of government perhaps—but what would such a party do if it was in power? Nothing, she imagined. It would try to pass legislation, but would fail.Highlighted by 49 Kindle customers
Chapter One - The Daddy
Chapter Two - All Those Years Ago
Chapter Three - Lessons About Boys and Goats
Chapter Four - Living With the Cousin and the Cousin's Husband
Chapter Five - What You Need To Open a Detective Agency
Chapter Six - Boy
Chapter Seven - Mma Makutsi Deals With the Mail
Chapter Eight - A Conversation with Mr. J.L.B Matekoni
Chapter Nine - The Boyfriend
Chapter Ten - Mma Ramotswe Thinks About the Land While Driving Her Tiny White Van To Francistown
Chapter Eleven - Big Car Guilt
Chapter Twelve - Mma Ramotswe's House In Zebra Drive
Chapter Thirteen - Why Don't You Marry Me?
Chapter Fourteen - Handsome Man
Chapter Fifteen - Mr. J.L.B Matekoni's Discovery
Chapter Sixteen - The Cutting of Fingers and Snakes
Chapter Seventeen - The Third Metacarpal
Chapter Eighteen - A Lot of Lies
Chapter Nineteen - Mr. Charlie Gotso, BA
Chapter Twenty - Medical Matters
Chapter Twenty-One - The Witch Doctor's Wife
Chapter Twenty-Two - Mr. J.L.B Matekoni
Followed by Tears of the Giraffe.
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