The Lost Art of Gratitude

of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served on many national and international bodies concerned with bioethics.

www.alexandermccallsmith.com

BOOKS BY ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

IN THE ISABEL DALHOUSIE SERIES

The Sunday Philosophy Club

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

The Right Attitude to Rain

The Careful Use of Compliments

The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday

The Lost Art of Gratitude

The Charming Quirks of Others

IN THE NO. 1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY SERIES

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

Tears of the Giraffe

Morality for Beautiful Girls

The Kalahari Typing School for Men

The Full Cupboard of Life

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

Blue Shoes and Happiness

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

The Miracle at Speedy Motors

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

The Double Comfort Safari Club

IN THE PORTUGUESE IRREGULAR VERBS SERIES

Portuguese Irregular Verbs

The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs

At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances

IN THE 44 SCOTLAND STREET SERIES

44 Scotland Street

Espresso Tales

Love Over Scotland

The World According to Bertie

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones

Corduroy Mansions

La’s Orchestra Saves the World

The Girl Who Married a Lion and Other Tales from Africa

FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, SEPTEMBER 2010

Copyright © 2009 by Alexander McCall Smith

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Published in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Great Britain by Little, Brown, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, London, and subsequently published in hardcover in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2009.

Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Excerpts from poems by W. H. Auden appear courtesy of Edward Mendelson, Executor of the Estate of W. H. Auden, and Random House, Inc.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Pantheon edition as follows:

McCall Smith, Alexander.

The lost art of gratitude / Alexander McCall Smith.

p. cm.

1. Dalhousie, Isabel (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women editors—Fiction. 3. Women philosophers—Fiction. 4. Investment bankers—Fiction. 5. Edinburgh (Scotland)—Fiction. I. Title.

PR6063.C326L67 2009

823?.914—dc22

2009022618

eISBN: 978-0-307-37857-6

www.anchorbooks.com

v3.1

This book is for Roger Cazalet—with gratitude

Contents

CoverPraise for the Isabel Dalhousie SeriesAbout the AuthorOther Books by This AuthorTitle PageCopyrightDedicationChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter Seventeen

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS WHILE she was lying in bed that Isabel Dalhousie, philosopher and editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, thought about the things we do. Isabel was a light sleeper; Charlie, her eighteen-month-old son, slept deeply and, she was sure, contentedly; Jamie was somewhere in between. Yet Isabel had little difficulty in getting to sleep. Once she made up her mind to sleep, all that she had to do was to shut her eyes and, sure enough, she would drift off. The same could be done if she surfaced in the course of the night or in those melancholy small hours when both body and spirit could be at their lowest ebb. Then all she had to do was to tell herself that this was not the time to start thinking, and she would quickly return to sleep.