LA'S ORCHESTRA SAVES THE WORLD

Alexander McCall Smith is one of my favorite authors. A Brit with wit, he always provides a chuckle-in-your-tea -- even the occasional pee-in-your-pants hilarious adventure in reading. So when I saw a book by him on the "New Books" shelf at the library, I grabbed it.

It's called "La's Orchestra Saves the World" and it's very different from anything else I've read by him. Set in a small village in Suffolk during War World II, it's the kind of story that whispers in your heart until you are snared unawares by its tenderness and truth. The writing in some paragraphs is so stunningly beautiful that you reread them just to hear the words again.

I don't know why, but I am always deeply moved by stories involving the British fight against Hitler during those dark years of the Blitz. I don't know a braver story. As I walked toward St. Paul's Cathedral in London with my daughters last August, recounting how the Londoners determined to save the cathedral, whatever the cost, and how they stationed soldiers in the belfry to watch for the German planes that came blazing in every night to bomb the city, I cried, like I do every time I visit this point in history. I don't even know that much about it. But something extraordinary happened in those five years in England, with Churchill chanting, "Never give in!" and the nation rallying to resist evil.

"La's Orchestra" is not really about that. It's about a girl who gets married and then unmarried and who finds a way to make a life and to contribute. But the setting is important and at least for me, incredibly moving.

Try any of Alexander McCall Smith's books. You won't be disappointed.