Date Published: 5th November 2019

The Laura Bush Book Club kicks of with hugely popular author,  Alexander McCall Smith, author of the bestselling The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, for the very first Book Club event. Meredith Land of NBC 5 moderates a discussion on the first book in the series, which tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s leading, and only, female private detective.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency received two Booker Judges’ Special Recommendations and was voted one of the International Books of the Year and the Millennium by the Times Literary Supplement. The series has sold over 20 million copies in the English language alone. The 20th book in the series, To the Land of Long Lost Friends, was published in October.

Listen to the Strategerist pod cast interview here Recorded at the same time as the Laura Bush Book Club

“Sandy” has taken millions of readers to the heart of Botswana through his best-selling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. We explore the beautiful African nation his characters live in and what book he considers a must-read.

As an author, Alexander McCall Smith has taken millions of readers to the heart of Botswana through his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. And even though he’s written or contributed to more than 100 books, writing is still a point of self-reflection for him. In this wide-ranging conversation, we explore the beautiful African nation his characters live in, how Alexander approached a modern retelling of a Jane Austen classic, and what book he considers a must-read.