'Emma: A Modern Retelling' author Alexander McCall Smith in Petaluma

Alexander McCall Smith, author of the ‘No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ series, will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday. April 16, at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma.

McCall Smith’s current book is “Emma: A Modern Retelling,” based on the Jane Austen classic. The novel transplants English heroine Emma Woodhouse from the 19th-century to the 21st century.

“The result is a new version of Emma,” McCall Smith wrote for the Daily Mail in London. “I have kept all the characters and the broad outlines of the plot, but everything now takes place in contemporary England. Emma herself drives a Mini Cooper, and the unpleasant clergyman, Mr Elton, drives a BMW.”

However, McCall Smith wrote, he took great care to preserve Austen’s sense and sensibility from the original “Emma.”

“They have picnics and dinner parties -- just as they do in the original -– but along the way, I have had the chance to reflect on the essential lessons that this most accomplished of authors sets out for us,” he said.

“She is not a pushy writer. She is very gentle in her approach, and if she has a point to make, she makes it very discreetly and without forcing it down our throats.”

Born in Rhodesia, McCall Smith is an Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh.

The book store is at 140 Kentucky St. Information: 762-0563, copperfieldsbooks.com.

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com.