La Stone is a widow who, as the Nazi threat looms, assembles a ragtag orchestra in rural Suffolk in hopes of altering "the temper of the world." Sh...
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reviews
May 05, 2011
ruzmarì
rated it: 
This is a sweet novel, and a frustrating one. McCall Smith (of the Ladies Detective Agency fame) here offers a stand-alone volume about the cultural act of healing from war, the redemptive power of music, and the trials of patient love. The La of the title (short for Lavender) is plucky, respectful and brave - also independently wealthy after the death of her philandering husband, and as it happens displaced from London. She takes up farm work in a rural community to help with England's WWII
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Jul 27, 2011
This was a lovely story about a woman who goes along nicely with what comes her way in life, agrees to marry someone just because he asked, and found herself falling in love with him, then he dumps her and runs off with another woman, so she goes off to the countryside to start a new life for herself...the 2nd world war happens and she volunteers herself for voluntary duties, working on the surrounding farms, she misses London, but doesn't go back there because of the dangers of war. She sets up
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Mar 10, 2011
Kathleen
rated it: 
I really enjoy Alexander McCall Smith's writing and his value system. This isn't one of the books from his series, and it parallels his own love of music. La (short for Lavender) is betrayed, then widowed, then moves to the country and finds peace in her garden, until the outbreak of World War II. Her contributions to winning the war are caring for chickens and, more importantly, keeping the semblance of peace and the normal rhythms of life moving forward by forming an orchestra. It combines to
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Mar 10, 2011
Carol
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I am a fan of Alexander McCall Smith’s books and usually love his simple story structure that allows for profound commentary on everyday life. I felt that this particular book fell short of the mark. The book is set at the outbreak of World War II in Great Britain. LA, an abbreviation for Lavender, is living in the country recovering from the betrayal of her philandering husband and his subsequent accidental death. She is the type of person who has a tendency to let life pass her by, being more
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Nov 01, 2010
Michele
rated it:
Decided to try something besides Ladies #1. I enjoyed the style and writing of this book very much. It has a feel of Potato Peel Society but not quite the happy ending you want or expect. I loved how you got an idea of what is like for people before the war started. I thought it gave some interesting history.
pg55 War is madness let loose.
on page 59 She plants a garden for the future, not knowing what it hold, and and says, "I shall not starve. Whatever happens in the worl More...
pg55 War is madness let loose.
on page 59 She plants a garden for the future, not knowing what it hold, and and says, "I shall not starve. Whatever happens in the worl More...
Oct 18, 2010
Edward
rated it: 
Apparently, readers familiar with the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series are somewhat disappointed by this book. Not having read the series, I wasn't disappointed at all and was even delighted. That might seem odd considering the story takes place in England in the years leading up to and through WWII.
Lavender is a rather ordinary heroine. She maintains her poise and perseveres despite setbacks and unexpected events. I think that's the whole point. She embodies her country's spirit More...
Lavender is a rather ordinary heroine. She maintains her poise and perseveres despite setbacks and unexpected events. I think that's the whole point. She embodies her country's spirit More...
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Jul 17, 2010
Sue
rated it:
A pleasant story, something I might have found in a Good Housekeeping or Redbook Magazine years ago when those magazines still printed novella-sized fiction.
McCall-Smith's writing is sparse, pleasant, and easy to read. He is at his best with his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series where his characters, the locale, and the story line make the best possible use of his style.
The story is about a young English woman, recently widowed by an unfaithful husband, at the beginn More...
McCall-Smith's writing is sparse, pleasant, and easy to read. He is at his best with his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series where his characters, the locale, and the story line make the best possible use of his style.
The story is about a young English woman, recently widowed by an unfaithful husband, at the beginn More...
May 24, 2010
Carolyn
rated it:
La’s Orchestra Saves the World centers on an ordinary Englishwoman in the years just prior to and during WWll. It is a quiet, graceful book, describing the small day to day activities of ordinary people trying to keep some semblance of order in their lives while dealing with the abruptly changing times.
The main character, La (short for Lavender) Stone, grew up on a hilltop in Surrey, and left to attend Cambridge where she expected to “be taught how to think.” Instead, she mar More...
Mar 26, 2010
Laura
rated it:
Alexander McCall Smith has a penchant for “cute” titles, some quite funny(At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances). However, something about a character named La, short for Lavender, struck me as too twee even for my low standards. I should have followed my instinct and skipped this, but I hoped for shades of Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Peel Society, or maybe “Paradise Road,” or at the very least some insight into the Women’s Land Army.
In brief, the story is about a woman who mov More...
In brief, the story is about a woman who mov More...
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Mar 15, 2010
Not every battle of World War II was fought by soldiers, on the seas and oceans, on the beaches, on the landing fields. And if there were no combatants involved, some were still indeed fought in the fields and the streets, as ordinary English men and women went about their lives, riding out the storm of war, doing the small things that needed doing.*
This novel, a departure from McCall Smith's usual serial work, is about one such Englishwoman, Lavender Stone, in one small Suffolk vill More...
This novel, a departure from McCall Smith's usual serial work, is about one such Englishwoman, Lavender Stone, in one small Suffolk vill More...
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Feb 04, 2010
M and G
rated it:
I got this book on a whim, because my sister is Lala (her nickname for herself) and she plays in an orchestra, so I thought I might give it to her. I've enjoyed the Isobel Dalhousie books, the Prof. Igelfeld trilogy and love Mma Ramotswe above all. I've also read many of his short stories and children's books.
After I finished it (in one and a half days, and reading far too late into the night) I read the reviews and was surprised by them.
This book impressed me more than any o More...
After I finished it (in one and a half days, and reading far too late into the night) I read the reviews and was surprised by them.
This book impressed me more than any o More...
Jan 31, 2010
salinthebay
rated it:
One Goodreads crit wrote," (AMS)Reads kind of like a Virginia Woolf novel, except that there is a hopefulness and the characters are less fatally fragile." Right on!
His female character, La, short for Lavender, hence the garden theme, is kind, tough and introspective. La is not unlike his other female characters in the No 1 Ladies' Detective series, and The Isabel Dalhousie series, my personal favorite. His understanding of the famale psyche ceases to amaze me...pehap More...
His female character, La, short for Lavender, hence the garden theme, is kind, tough and introspective. La is not unlike his other female characters in the No 1 Ladies' Detective series, and The Isabel Dalhousie series, my personal favorite. His understanding of the famale psyche ceases to amaze me...pehap More...
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Jan 23, 2010
Judy
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The theme of this book is that "each one of us should do something to make life better for somebody, to change the course of events, even if only in the most local sense." In 1939, Lavender--La to her friends--decides to leave London. Her life is in shambles. Her husband has left her for a woman that he has met in France and his parents offer La their house in Suffolk so that she can begin to rebuild her life. La initially finds living in the country to be too quiet and isolating a
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Jan 22, 2010
Lydia
rated it:
It's no secret that I love Alexander McCall Smith. I think his No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series is pretty darn near close to perfection.
In La's Orchestra Saves the World he writes with the same simple, pure style that he does in his other books and it works so well. I always feel as if life slows down and I can, figuratively speaking, smell the roses when I read one of his novels. I love the feeling of peace and calm I get and how he always finds the gentleness and kindness in More...
In La's Orchestra Saves the World he writes with the same simple, pure style that he does in his other books and it works so well. I always feel as if life slows down and I can, figuratively speaking, smell the roses when I read one of his novels. I love the feeling of peace and calm I get and how he always finds the gentleness and kindness in More...
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Dec 27, 2009
Ann
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This was the first of my Christmas gift books -- so I started it yesterday (Boxing Day!) It is by one of my favourite writers -- but very different from any of his other series.
It is set before and during the second world war, mainly in Suffolk, England. The main character, La (short for Lavender) has an unsuccesful marriage (husband leaves her for a French woman, then has an accident and dies.) She moves to Suffolk to get away from memories and to re-build her life. She becomes par More...
It is set before and during the second world war, mainly in Suffolk, England. The main character, La (short for Lavender) has an unsuccesful marriage (husband leaves her for a French woman, then has an accident and dies.) She moves to Suffolk to get away from memories and to re-build her life. She becomes par More...
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Sep 22, 2010
Jennifer
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Again, McCall Smith writes a story about a female main character and makes it believable. The story begins just before WWII in England, and ends in the 1960's. It is really about the inhabitants of a small village and how they coped with the war in small ways, gardening, war work, listening to the wireless, and of course, La's orchestra. It is about missing opportunities, and then missing them again, and then finally realizing you have nothing to lose and taking the opportunity when it comes you
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Jan 30, 2010
Deb
rated it:
La (short for Lavender)Stone retreats from pre-WWII London to the country after her husband abandons her for another woman. She finds it quiet, too quiet, in fact, at first and she struggles to find a purpose in life. As WWII breaks out, La discovers a purpose by working a "Land girl", assisting a local farmer with his hens, and by assembling a village orchestra. This orchestra becomes a symbol for the village of their determination to "keep on, keeping on" during the long
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Sep 13, 2011
Donna
rated it:
This is a good book, but is miss-titled (imho). The main character "La" helps create a country orchestra during WWII, but the orchestra and how it helped the war effort, or even how it helped more than 2 people through the hardships, is not the focus of the book. It's about the main character and her experiences before, during, and after the war: her loneliness, fears, personal disappointments, and experiences. She wasn't greatly deprived, being wealthy. The charm comes from the v
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Jul 23, 2010
Michael
rated it:
As an Alexander McCall Smith fan, I picked up the audio edition of this book to listen to during my commute. It makes for excellent listening. You really don't want to listen to a depressing story on the way to work. Overall, I give the story 3 stars with an extra star for McCall Smith's style and voice. The story has a quicker pace than The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency so you don't get lost in the characters' meditations. But it has the same light touch conveying a wonderful message of ho
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Mar 26, 2010
Afshin
rated it:
Is life simple and linear? Or as modern literature tried to convince us it’s complicated and unapproachable. Are we lost in maze of life, with different conflicted features in our mind or not? After I finished “La’s Orchestra saves the world” I struggled with these kinds of questions for a while. I could not believe that you can simplified life as it reflected in the story and still believing that the story is “an evocation of wartorn England, with its palpable mood of defiance” as some claimed.
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Jul 28, 2011
Adriane
rated it:
A young woman moves to the English countryside to build a new life for herself after a fractured marriage and unexpected inheritance. Amid unsettling rumors of Hitler’s rise to power, she busies herself with the “war effort” by easing an elderly farmer’s workload, fretting over broken eggs and foxes in the henhouse rather than the bombings in the big city. She meets new friends who through a shared love of playing instruments form a tiny orchestra that provided “camaraderie, the sense of nati
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Mar 07, 2010
Rebecca
rated it:
One of the luxuries in writing serials (for which Alexander McCall Smith is best known) is that you can always tie up loose ends in a later book. But in a novel likeLa's Orchestra Saves the World, that luxury doesn't exist. The premise of the story is great, and the book is a pleasurable read, but there is a lot that never gets fully developed. For example, the wartime pickup orchestra would have been an excellent opportunity to throw in several colorful characters who could make cameo appear
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Jul 08, 2010
Dawn
rated it:
I enjoyed the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, but I haven't been able to get into the author's other series. This is a new stand alone book. The premise is interesting, but the execution disappointed me at first. It was all so understated and repressed British. The woman spends twenty years alone and lonely because she doesn't speak up! I guess my judgement is a bit harsh since she doesn't think he returns her feelings, but I think she was too timid. She should at least have tried.
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Jan 17, 2010
Mari Anne
rated it:
I just can't resist a new Alexander McCall Smith! Hope it's as good as No. 1 Detective!
New update: Just finished it and have to say I was disappointed. The basic plot of this story had so much potential that unfortunately was never realized. The author, like in many of his previous books, has a tendency to wax poetic and ramble on for paragraphs about lovely philosphical ideas that are quite profound I am sure, but add nothing to the actual story. During these pages I, your humble rea More...
New update: Just finished it and have to say I was disappointed. The basic plot of this story had so much potential that unfortunately was never realized. The author, like in many of his previous books, has a tendency to wax poetic and ramble on for paragraphs about lovely philosphical ideas that are quite profound I am sure, but add nothing to the actual story. During these pages I, your humble rea More...
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Nov 28, 2009
Lisa
rated it:
Quick hit: A good read, but not as good as McCall Smith's other books.
With “La’s Orchestra Saves the World,” we are invited to England, specifically the countryside of Suffolk, during the World War II, a time of blitzes and rationing, a time of sacrifice and fear — real, legitimate fear — that one’s own homeland was in mortal danger.
Cambridge-educated Lavender Stone, known as “La,” has fled London after the breakup of her marriage and the start of the war. La sets up alone in a More...
With “La’s Orchestra Saves the World,” we are invited to England, specifically the countryside of Suffolk, during the World War II, a time of blitzes and rationing, a time of sacrifice and fear — real, legitimate fear — that one’s own homeland was in mortal danger.
Cambridge-educated Lavender Stone, known as “La,” has fled London after the breakup of her marriage and the start of the war. La sets up alone in a More...
Dec 15, 2009
Amy
rated it:
A first stand alone from Alexander McCall Smith, La’s Orchestra Saves the World is a heartwarming, comforting read. Lavender, La for short, demonstrates how a simple ordinary woman can impact those around her by her simple ordinary actions. Set in Suffolk England during WWII this story nicely illustrates the English phrase “Keep Calm and Carry On.” Despite the desperate situations of the war, La offers to not only do some “war work” for a local farmer free of charge, but to also create a loca
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Apr 01, 2010
Debra
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Absolutely loved this book. It wasn't perfect especially toward the end as the main characters became a bit long-winded in making their points, but overall, I thought it was fantastic. I love Alexander McCall Smith's sensibility, the way he tackles difficult topics and times without overwhelming me. I love his command of language, the way he evokes a certain place and time without going overboard. Part of the reason I loved this book is because it is set primarily in Suffolk, England which is wh
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Feb 14, 2010
Joanne
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I love McCall Smith's No 1. Ladies Detective Agency series, but have never been pulled in by the Isabel Dalhousie series. Was intrigued by this stand-alone novel. It's about a woman (La) during WW2 who does her little part for the war effort, not only starting an orchestra as stated in the title -- the orchestra really isn't that big a deal -- but also helping a crotchety old farmer. It reminds me a little of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society in its female-in-wartime plot.
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Jan 25, 2010
Ellen
rated it:
I am still making up my mind about this one. I have taken to reading books about the homefront during World War II and find La's orchestra more removed from the drama of survival than those by Joan Paton Walsh or Anne Perry. McCall Smith's concern with moral nuances is there. La, a young woman who has retreated to a village near Cambridge after being deserted by her husband, does her bit for the war by growing vegetables, looking after chickens on a neighbor's farm, and forming an orchestra co
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May 16, 2010
Bonnie
rated it:
Love this author's "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series that take place in Botswana, so I thought I'd try this new one of his that is NOT in the series. He has some beauty about him as a writer. I hardly think anyone can describe the sky as lovely as he does. It was a fun idea, and a quick, easy read, with a nice ending that one hopes for, doesn't almost get, and then surprisingly gets in the last paragraph, which does amazingly work for this book. However I didn't love it, but
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