“Delightfully silly…. [von Igelfeld is a literary Mr. Magoo.” —The Washington Post
“Filled with comic characters, all academics of a particularly stripe. . . . McCall Smith has the same gift that John Mortimer has in making boring conversations hilarious—the atmosphere in the Institute of Romance Philology’s coffee room is very like the one-upmanship and backbiting in Horace Rumpole’s chambers. Academia can be a hoot, and this series proves it.”
—Booklist
“Professor von Igelfeld is a comic gem. . . . McCall Smith skewers the pomposity of academic pretension with an irresistible, deadpan insouciance.”
–BlogCritics
Acclaim for the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series
“A comedic jewel… [At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances] attains a level of sublime nonsense reminiscent of Woody Allen’s Bananas.” —The New York Times
“In the halls of academe, a setting fraught with ego-driven battles for power and prestige [McCall Smith] has rendered yet another one-of-a-kind character: the bumbling but brilliant Dr. Mortiz-Maria von Igelfeld . . . . [a] deftly rendered trilogy [with] endearingly eccentric characters.” —Chicago Sun-Times
