the lost art of gratitude by alexander mccall smith

'But it must annoy you-being asked about medical matters.' Doctors understand all about embarrassment, you know.'

Somebody comes and says, A friend of mine has this rash, you see, and I wondered what it was. There you are at a party and somebody says: I've been having these twinges of pain in my stomach. You see, you doctors must dread being buttonholed by people who want to talk about their symptoms. 'I don't like to ask about medical things,' she said. She had not consulted him professionally, but had brought the matter up over dinner not before the whole table, of course, but in the intimacy of the one-to-one conversation that people have with those sitting beside them. She had wondered about the causes of her light sleeping and had spoken about it to a friend, a specialist in sleep disorders. Then all she had to do was to tell herself that this was not the time to start thinking, and she would quickly return to sleep. The same could be done if she surfaced in the course of the night or in those melancholy small hours when both body and spirit could be at their lowest ebb.

Once she made up her mind to sleep, all that she had to do was to shut her eyes and, sure enough, she would drift off. Yet Isabel had little difficulty in getting to sleep. Isabel was a light sleeper Charlie, her eighteen-month-old son, slept deeply and, she was sure, contentedly Jamie was somewhere in between. IT WAS WHILE she was lying in bed that Isabel Dalhousie, philosopher and editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, thought about the things we do. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. To make matters worse, the anything but peaceable Professor Dove has accused Minty, it seems, is having trouble in her personal life, and seeks Isabel's help. Whether investigating a case or a problem of philosophy, the indefatigable Isabel Dalhousie, one of fiction's most richly developed amateur detectives, is always ready to pursue the answers to all of life's questions, large and small. The sensational sixth installment in the best-selling chronicles of the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie finds our inquisitive heroine and new mother racing two very troublesome people from her past. Isabel's son, Charlie, is only eighteen months, but his social life is already kicking into high gear, and it's at a birthday party, where Isabel is approached by Minty Auchterlonie, an old adversary and now a high-flying financier. Nothing captures the charm of Edinburgh like the bestselling Isabel Dalhousie series of novels featuring the insatiably curious philosopher and woman detective.

The lost art of gratitude by alexander mccall smith