I've just finished re-reading a trilogy of novels by the great science fiction writer, Ursula LeGuin. Most reviewers focus on LeGuin's "anthropological" nature; in other words, her ability to skillfully depict a fictional community's history, everyday practices, and belief system. In doing so, they miss the reason why LeGuin concentrates on the life of the community as a means to develop her characters and their motives. LeGuin is not an individualist, like most American authors who concentrate on one or two characters and their desires and internal lives, and ultimately their alienation from society; instead, she's a communitarian who sees a direct link between the internal life of her characters and the external life of the community, nation, or world that surrounds them. There's little separation between the individual and nature, or the individual and community, and much of the conflict in her work appears when individuals are forced apart, or choose to hold themselves apart, from the whole. It's a concept that's not explored much in American literature.

So it's both puzzling and heartening to see her classic Earthsea Trilogy, written in the late Sixties and early Seventies, described as young-adult novels. Puzzling, because they're complex, dark, and contain concepts that many American adults would have trouble grasping. On the other hand, it's heartening that kids could be given something besides simple-minded (albeit entertaining) Harry Potter books to read.

I read the Earthsea novels for the first time when I was a teenager, having finished Tolkein's trilogy, which chronicles the death and disintegration of several communities, but the ultimate survival of mankind (of course). LeGuin's way of opposing, yet linking, the concepts of light and darkness, water and earth, life and death, and her ultimate celebration of the simple choice not to do violence somehow seemed more mature than Tolkein's good vs. evil, even with the complex linguistic and historical grounding he provided for Middle Earth.

I've reread the Earthsea Trilogy--A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, and The Farthest Shore--so I can pick up and read the books she's written since then which add to the Earthsea universe, including two more novels and a book of short stories. She's said many times that she won't write more Earthsea novels. But maybe, hopefully, she'll change her mind.--Maria Tomchick

Alexander McCall Smith's mystery novels of Botswana are a quick and irresistible read. In The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, we're introduced to Precious Ramotswe, determined to become Botswana's only woman detective (and perhaps it's only detective). Jaded by a bad marriage, but in love with the traditional life and values of Botswana, Mma Ramotswe becomes both a career woman with no regrets and a woman of some power in her community, who sees the western way of living as what's ultimately corrupting Botswana's youth. Yet, she doesn't reject all western conveniences; it's clear that western culture is the problem.

Mma Ramotswe also has a unique way of solving her cases. In nearly every American and British mystery novel, the dead bodies mount, danger lurks behind every corner, and the story ends very badly for the murderer, who either dies by his or her own hand or is sentenced to death or life in prison. In a sense, mystery novels reflect a certain cynicism about human nature, which can turn so easily to darkness and violence. By contrast, these light, bright novels about a dry, proud nation in Southern Africa treat crime in the context of a community wrestling with change. Happily, Mma Ramotswe doesn't only tackle murder cases, but also car theft, kidnapping, adultery, and many "petty" crimes, and she often helps both the victim and the perpetrator out of a quagmire of crime and into a future of hope. She often does it without resorting to the police or a higher "authority"--except perhaps the higher moral authority of traditional Botswana values. Read Smith's books and smile, because they're gripping in a way that's very different from the average mystery novel. Highly recommended.--M.T.

And, I might add to the above -- to the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, that is -- that they're frequently extremely funny. And -- here's a word you won't find much in mystery series -- delightful. They don't need to be read in order, but they do, in fact, trace Mma's life and developments in it over time as well as her assorted cases, starting with her first day in a new barren office in No. 1. There's three of them out in paperback, and a new fourth one, just out in hardcover, that I spied in the airport bookstore a couple weeks ago in Minneapolis. Even at 20-whatever dollars, I just about bought it. --Geov Parrish