9) The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith

A really charming book, and I hope that the real Botswana is as friendly and laid-back as the Botswana portrayed here (I know that George Monbiot has harsher things to say about the place). This isn’t really a novel, more a loosely linked series of cheerful vignettes, as if the author was doing a series of trial pieces to try out his writing skills. But all very nice, with on the whole happy endings to each of them.