Great book, or books to be precise.I loved the idiosyncratic characters and the dry humour. ( )

lovely, want more, witty, can read mccall all day ( )

Alexander McCall Smith branching out from Botswana and Edinburgh into German academia, not entirely successfully. His other books inspire affection for characters of natural warmth. Here, he has used less attractive characters with less attractive results. Read May 2009. ( )

The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom collects the three volumes of McCall Smith's Portuguese Irregular Verbs trilogy: Portuguese Irregular Verbs, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances. These three are linked by an unlikely (and often unlikeable) protagonist: Prof. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, a German Romance philologist and author of the (to him, at least) all-important manual Portuguese Irregulat Verbs. From his office at the Institute in Regensburg, he directs his research and lords it over his two co-researchers, Drs. Prinzel and Unterholzer (who, distinguished as they may be, did not write such a monumental work of philology).

The short adventures and vignettes are carried by Igelfeld's stragely charming pompousness, as he finds himself in situations that become increasingly bizarre and dangerous: from a lecture cruise where he is swamped with marriage requests, to four months in Cambridge surrounded by plotting academics, to a final voyage where he accidentaly becomes the new President of Colombia. Beneath all the arrogance and academic preoccupations, however, is the very human story of a basically honorable man who would like somehing more from life than conferences and publications, but who never seems to work up the courage to pursue it. There are two poignant moments, when Igelfeld seriously contemplates marriage (he is the only bachelor of the three), and in both he makes the mistake of hesitating a moment too long... ( )

http://nylusmilk.wordpress.com/2008/1... ( )