Trains and Lovers. Alexander McCall Smith. 2012.

Imagine you’re on a train. Think about all the other people on the train with you, what their lives are or have been, the different experiences you’ve all had. But there is one thing that you have all been in love at one time or another.

In this surprising and poignant story, four strangers meet on a journey from Edinburgh to London. Each has a take to tell: for Hugh, a brief encounter on a railway platform leads to an impulsive and possibly dangerous decision; Kay recounts the long journey back to her childhood home in Australia and the love that was there; David remembers a teenage friendship that shaded into love; and Andrew makes a discovery that art and people may not be what they seem to be at first glance. 

Love may come to us, then, in very different guises, and be unexpected too, but loving others, as one of the characters as one of the characters in this tale observes, is the good thing we do in our lives.