The key to contentment in the Scottish climate is the right attitude to rain-just as in life the key to happiness lies in making the best of what you have. But in her plain-speaking housekeeper Grace'sopinion, Isabel Dalhousie - wealthy, attractive, kind and lonely-does not make the best of what she has; in Isabel's life there is too much thought and not enough action.

Tender and wise, intensely thoughtful and consistently entertaining, The Right Attitude to Rain is shot through with the compassion and unassuming intelligence that have made Alexander McCall Smith's work so beloved and indispensable across the world.