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The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café
''The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café'' is the fifteenth mystery novel by Alexander McCall Smith in the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, first published in 2014. The novel features the Motswana protagonist Precious Ramotswe, commonly addressed as Mma Ramotswe throughout the series. Mma Ramotswe is based in Gaborone, Botswana and has set up the first and only detective agency in the country. Plot summary Mma Makutsi has decided to start a new venture: The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café. She envisages this to be place for fashionable men to hobnob, and in her excitement ignores the various warning signs, even when alerted by her husband Phuti Radiphuti and her idol and boss Mma Ramotswe. To run the café, she ends up hiring her lawyer's family, all of whom have a track record of being unreliable. To make the matters worse, her nemesis Violet Sephotho, who is now a restaurant critic, spares no mean words in her review published in the leading national daily. Mma Potokwani helps b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE (born 24 August 1948), is a British writer. He was raised in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and formerly Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. He became an expert on medical law and bioethics and served on related British and international committees. He has since become known as a fiction writer, with sales in English exceeding 40 million by 2010 and translations into 46 languages. He is known as the creator of ''The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency'' series. The "McCall" derives from his great-great-grandmother Bethea McCall, who married James Smith at Glencairn, Dumfries-shire, in 1833. Early life Alexander McCall Smith was born in 1948 in Bulawayo in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), to British parents. He was the only son, having three elder sisters. His father worked as a public prosecutor in Bulawayo. McCall Smith's paternal grandfather was the medical doctor and New Zealand communit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The No
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaborone
Gaborone ( , , ) is the capital and largest city of Botswana with a population of 246,325 based on the 2022 census, about 10% of the total population of Botswana. Its agglomeration is home to 421,907 inhabitants at the 2011 census. Gaborone is situated between Kgale Hill and Oodi Hill, near the confluence of the Notwane River and Segoditshane River in the south-eastern corner of Botswana, from the South African border. The city is served by the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport. It is an administrative district in its own right, but is the capital of the surrounding South-East District. Locals often refer to the city as ''GC or Motse-Mshate''. The city of Gaborone is named after Chief Gaborone of the Tlokwa tribe, who once controlled land nearby. Because it had no tribal affiliation and was close to fresh water, the city was planned to be the capital in the mid-1960s when the Bechuanaland Protectorate became an independent nation. The centre of the city is a lon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. It is connected to Zambia across the short Zambezi River border by the Kazungula Bridge. A country of slightly over 2.3 million people, Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. About 11.6 percent of the population lives in the capital and largest city, Gaborone. Formerly one of the world's poorest countries—with a GDP per capita of about US$70 per year in the late 1960s—it has since transformed itself into an upper-middle-income country, with one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Modern-day humans first inhabited the country over 200,000 years ago. The Tswana ethnic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon
''The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon'' is the fourteenth mystery novel by Alexander McCall Smith in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, first published in 2013. The novel features the Motswana protagonist Precious Ramotswe and is set in Botswana. Mma Ramotswe has two cases on hand, one to verify the identity of a boy as the heir to a large farm and the other to stop the smear campaign against the owner of the Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, as it has stopped all customers from coming to her shop. Grace Makutsi is pregnant, but does not bring up the fact until late in her pregnancy, nor does she ever bring up the plan for her maternity leave. This gives Mma Ramotswe much to consider while her secretary and assistant is away with the baby. Mr JLB Matekoni contemplates whether he is a modern husband. This novel drew a range of reactions from reviewers. Some viewed it positively, termed it "endearing", and considered the novel to have its strength in the characters and their lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Washington Times
''The Washington Times'' is an American conservative daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., that covers general interest topics with a particular emphasis on national politics. Its broadsheet daily edition is distributed throughout the District of Columbia and in parts of Maryland and Virginia. A weekly tabloid edition aimed at a national audience is also published. ''The Washington Times'' was one of the first American broadsheets to publish its front page in full color. ''The Washington Times'' was founded on May 17, 1982, by Unification movement leader Sun Myung Moon and owned until 2010 by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate founded by Moon. It is currently owned by Operations Holdings, which is a part of the Unification movement. Throughout its history, ''The Washington Times'' has been known for its conservative political stance, supporting the policies of Republican presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, which is owned by News Corp. Times Newspapers also publishes ''The Times''. The two papers were founded independently and have been under common ownership since 1966. They were bought by News International in 1981. ''The Sunday Times'' has a circulation of just over 650,000, which exceeds that of its main rivals, including ''The'' ''Sunday Telegraph'' and ''The'' ''Observer'', combined. While some other national newspapers moved to a tabloid format in the early 2000s, ''The Sunday Times'' has retained the larger broadsheet format and has said that it would continue to do so. As of December 2019, it sells 75% more copies than its sister paper, ''The Times'', which is published from Monday to Saturday. The paper publishes ''The Sunday Ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers' literature. ''Kirkus Reviews'', published on the first and 15th of each month; previews books before their publication. ''Kirkus'' reviews over 10,000 titles per year. History Virginia Kirkus was hired by Harper & Brothers to establish a children's book department in 1926. The department was eliminated as an economic measure in 1932 (for about a year), so Kirkus left and soon established her own book review service. Initially, she arranged to get galley proofs of "20 or so" books in advance of their publication; almost 80 years later, the service was receiving hundreds of books weekly and reviewing about 100. Initially titled ''Bulletin'' by Kirkus' Bookshop Service from 1933 to 1954, the title was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deus Ex Machina
''Deus ex machina'' ( , ; plural: ''dei ex machina''; English "god out of the machine") is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence. Its function is generally to resolve an otherwise irresolvable plot situation, to surprise the audience, to bring the tale to a happy ending, or act as a comedic device. Origin of the expression ''Deus ex machina'' is a Latin calque . The term was coined from the conventions of ancient Greek theater, where actors who were playing gods were brought onto stage using a machine. The machine could be either a crane (''mechane'') used to lower actors from above or a riser that brought them up through a trapdoor. Aeschylus introduced the idea, and it was used often to resolve the conflict and conclude the drama. The device is associated mostly with Greek tragedy, although it also appeared in comedies. Ancient examples Aeschylus used the device in his '' Eume ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South China Morning Post
The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remained Hong Kong's newspaper of record since British colonial rule. Editor-in-chief Tammy Tam succeeded Wang Xiangwei in 2016. The ''SCMP'' prints paper editions in Hong Kong and operates an online news website. The newspaper's circulation has been relatively stable for years—the average daily circulation stood at 100,000 in 2016. In a 2019 survey by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the ''SCMP'' was regarded relatively as the most credible paid newspaper in Hong Kong. The ''SCMP'' was owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation from 1986 until it was acquired by Malaysian real estate tycoon Robert Kuok in 1993. On 5 April 2016, Alibaba Group acquired the media properties of the SCMP Group, including the ''SCMP''. In January 2017, former D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2014 British Novels
Fourteen or 14 may refer to: * 14 (number), the natural number following 13 and preceding 15 * one of the years 14 BC, AD 14, 1914, 2014 Music * 14th (band), a British electronic music duo * ''14'' (David Garrett album), 2013 *''14'', an unreleased album by Charli XCX * "14" (song), 2007, from ''Courage'' by Paula Cole Other uses * ''Fourteen'' (film), a 2019 American film directed by Dan Sallitt * ''Fourteen'' (play), a 1919 play by Alice Gerstenberg * ''Fourteen'' (manga), a 1990 manga series by Kazuo Umezu * ''14'' (novel), a 2013 science fiction novel by Peter Clines * ''The 14'', a 1973 British drama film directed by David Hemmings * Fourteen, West Virginia, United States, an unincorporated community * Lot Fourteen, redevelopment site in Adelaide, South Australia, previously occupied by the Royal Adelaide Hospital * "The Fourteen", a nickname for NASA Astronaut Group 3 * Fourteen Words, a phrase used by white supremacists and Nazis See also * 1/4 (other) * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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