Available Formats
Paperback, New in Paperback
Published: 1st May 2023
Paperback, Reissue
Published: 12th September 2025
Pianos and Flowers: Brief Encounters of the Romantic Kind
By (Author) Alexander McCall Smith
Birlinn General
Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited
12th September 2025
Reissue
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Fiction: general and literary
Fiction and Related items
Short stories
Romance
Contemporary lifestyle fiction
Paperback
192
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 20mm
In Pianos and Flowers we are invited to glimpse a world long departed. In these stories, inspired by long-lost photographs, the lives of the people in the frame are imagined and then explored, layer by layer.
Three sisters brought up in Penang, caught in the tide of war.
A group of small boys in a Glasgow slum their childhood blighted by poverty, their adult lives taking very different paths.
A young woman's search for love in the unlikely realm of Egyptian antiquities.
And through all of these photographs, and all of these stories, there runs the same refrain: the possibilities of love, of friendship, of happiness lie before us.
'McCall Smiths expert handling of conflict and rich imagination make this one his fans will enjoy'
* Publisher's Weekly *'The beloved author invites us to glimpse a world long departed... from Glasgow slums to Egyptian relics, love, friendship and happiness are the central themes'
* Scots Magazine *'A picture paints a thousand words ... this book demonstrates the imagination and skill of McCall Smith to be able to create personal stories from something as simple as a photograph'
* Dundee Courier, Scottish Book of the Week *'A delightful compendium of short stories'
* Edinburgh Life *Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the highly successful No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, which has sold over twenty-five million copies. Since then he has devoted his time to the writing of fiction and has seen his various series of books translated into over forty-six languages and become bestsellers throughout the world.