The Private Side of Friendship
One city. Six strangers. A nation divided. The time of their lives.
by Alexander McCall Smith
£17.99
Add to BasketReviews
Pushing into new territory ... [a] typically thoughtful and entertaining novel
The Scotsman
Warm, uplifting, and totally compelling, I couldn’t put it down. Perfect for curling up with a hot chocolate and a slice of cake on a chilly evening, it’s guaranteed to lift your mood
Sixty Plus Surfers
'A sweet novel infused with a love of the Athens of the North
Saga Magazine
One of the world's best known authors, takes readers to a city he knows very well – as six young Edinburgh students embark on a flatshare and navigate new friendships against the backdrop of social unrest of the 1980s miners’ strikes
BBC Radio 4 Take 4 Books
A gentle read with an insightful look at friendships established during what is for many people a formative stage of their lives
Portobello Book Blog
It’s whole subject is the apprenticeship for adulthood that studenthood so often represents: that specific time when childhood friendships start to fade and new ones form; when one can feel loneliness in a crowded flat or lecture hall. This whole process of change is neatly mirrored in what is happening in the country at large, as glimpsed in the Armadale miners’ rally...’
David Robinson, Critic
An enjoyable, heart-warming read’
Bookseller Review, Hatchards
McCall Smith has a talent for creating realistic characters whose thoughts and feelings and conversations are wholly credible
Goodreads Five Star Review
There are constant features across the whole panoply of McCall Smith's output. Wry and witty observations about the day-to-day lives of normal people. An innocence and delight in the human condition. And, always, a twinkle on the eye shared by writer and reader. He is a happy writer and that makes for happy readers
Love Reading
About the Book
Featured on BBC Radio 4's Take Four Books
Six friends. One city. The time of their lives.
It’s 1988, and on the verge of a reunion with friends she hasn’t seen since graduation, Julie recalls her halcyon student days of 1984 and the strange tumultuous time they lived through.
The friends – each from a very different background – are living in a gorgeous terraced flat in their Edinburgh idyll. As they navigate relationships and the unspoken rules of flat sharing, the troubled world all around them seems rather distant. But in the nearby hometown of one of the flatmates, the Miners' Strike is bringing about a huge political shift.
Despite their differences, can these six strangers help each other see the world from a different perspective? Is there such a thing as being too close? And what are the limits of love between friends?
The Author
Alexander McCall Smith
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. These include the 44 Scotland Street novels, first published as a serial novel in the Scotsman, the Isabel Dalhousie novels, the Von Igelfeld series and the Corduroy Mansions novels.
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