Thank you to Mr McCall Smith for releasing the first few chapters of his upcoming 'update' of Emma by Jane Austen. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. Mr Woodhouse is reduced to a pernickety hypochondriac, poor Miss Taylor is Mary Poppins, Isabella is an airhead, and worst of all, John Knightley is a smarmy society photographer - and those are only the first few characters 'introduced' in this formulaic translation of one of my favourite novels. I don't much care for McCall Smith's 'comic' style, either. I'm sure he's a fabulous author when writing his own material, but I wouldn't have picked him to re-write Emma. ( )