Another Tale, Another City

A few years ago I got the chance to visit one of my other favorite cities, San Francisco.  The city itself was absolutely gorgeous and so full of fun things to do and eat.  While I was there, I did my usual thing when travelling to a new city, I hit the bookstores (shocking, I know).  I love finding bookstores in new places, because they tend to carry books specific to the region.  While browsing in San Fran, I consistently found Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City.  So I figured I'd give it a shot since it revolved around my (at the time) new favorite place.  After starting the first, in about a week and half I had read all 6 in the series and fell in love with the characters. The stories were (this is corny I know) dazzling and I wanted to be them and have the courage to do all the crazy things they did. Since then I've been looking for a series close to Tales to read that would excite me and hook me in as much as it had. 

It's taken about 8 years but I think I may have finally found it.  Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street series, is, while I'm only on the first book, pretty close to perfect.  Seeing that I've since fallen in love with all things Great Britain, it's a version of Tales of the City on in Scotland, sounded right up my alley.  While it's a bit more genteel and a little less bawdy, you still get these 6 degrees of separation relationships that are so compelling.  I'm hoping that the next in the series will be as fabulous as the first as I'm already hooked on the tenants of the house with the red door on Scotland street, and look forward to their adventures.

Both series are set in a building full of colorful characters with a beautiful city as the backdrop. The relationships that form often begin out of pure proximity to each other but they become a second family as the stories wear on. I know that in real life, most people don't barge into each other's apartments/flats like they do in these tales, but in my head it really happens.  It seems a weird wish coming from someone who owns their own home, but one day I want to live this strange little contained way of life.  I think it's why I gravitate toward cities, specifically London.  The chance to finally live in an apartment and see if stuff like this actually happens is too delicious a thought to pass up.  In London I'd have no choice of course...unless I hit the lottery, a tiny little studio flat would be all that I could afford.    And maybe, just maybe, if I'm very, very lucky, my new BFF will nickname be Babycakes and our landlady/den mother will be a former He that drives a custard yellow Mercedes and I'll begin work on my own tale.