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Jan 22, 2014maipenrai rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
*** 1/2 stars. The rocking motion of the train as it speeds along, the sound of its wheels on the rails . . . There?s something special about this form of travel that makes for easy conversation, which is just what happens to the four strangers who meet in Trains and Lovers. As they journey by rail from Edinburgh to London, the four travelers pass the time by sharing tales of trains that have changed their lives. A young, keen-eyed Scotsman recounts how he turned a friendship with a female coworker into a romance by spotting an anachronistic train in an eighteenth-century painting. An Australian woman shares how her parents fell in love and spent their life together running a railroad siding in the remote Australian Outback. A middle-aged American patron of the arts sees two young men saying goodbye in a train station and recalls his own youthful crush on another man. And a young Englishman describes how exiting his train at the wrong station allowed him to meet an intriguing woman whom he impulsively invited to dinner?and into his life.... I adore Alexander McCall Smith and regard him as one of the consummate story tellers of our day. I love Precious Romatswe and the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series!!! They are an especial delight to listen to on audiobooks for the great Botswana dialect. I am only slightly less fond of the Isabel Dalhousie and 44 Scotland Street series. Mr. McCall Smith is also an author of children's books, which is probably what helps to make him such a great story-teller, character developer and lover of the whimsical and and heart-breaking all at the same time. I loved the stories in this novel, but prefer his continuing character novels more because you always get another chance to join their lives. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!