Portuguese Irregular Verbs (Portuguese Irregular Verbs, #1)
Readers who fell in love with Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, now have new cause for celebration in the protagonist of these three light-footed comic novels by Alexander McCall Smith. Welcome to the insane and rarified world of Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von...
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Readers who fell in love with Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, now have new cause for celebration in the protagonist of these three light-footed comic novels by Alexander McCall Smith. Welcome to the insane and rarified world of Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld of the Institute of Romance Philology. Von Igelfeld is engaged in a never-ending quest to win the respect he feels certain he is due–a quest which has the tendency to go hilariously astray. In Portuguese Irregular Verbs, Professor Dr von Igelfeld learns to play tennis, and forces a college chum to enter into a duel that results in a nipped nose. He also takes a field trip to Ireland where he becomes acquainted with the rich world of archaic Irishisms, and he develops an aching infatuation with a Dentist fatale. Along the way, he takes two ill-fated Italian sojourns, the first merely uncomfortable, the second definitely dangerous.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9781400077083 (1400077087)
Publish date: December 28th 2004
Publisher: Anchor
Pages no: 128
Edition language: English
Category:
Novels,
Humor,
Funny,
Comedy,
Academic,
Literature,
Book Club,
Adult Fiction,
Mystery,
Contemporary,
Academia
Series: The 2½ Pillars of Wisdom (#1)
A light, humorous book about a German doctor of philology, if that makes sense. While parts were very funny, especially at the beginning, it lost steam as it developed. Though it didn't actually "develop." Mostly it just cast a pretentious German PhD into silly situations meant to poke fun at preten...
This was really fun and light reading. The little details that make academics human, and ever so out of touch, really resonated! I enjoyed this as a good recreational read, and appreciate the episodic writing. It's like a set of short stories with a common setting and characters, rather than a novel...
I love Alexander McCall Smith, but this book kind of fell flat for me. I listened to it twice, and don't remember when I finished it for sure, or much about the book. It just wasn't very memorable. Much of the humor depends on a familiarity with academia - it is amusing in a droll sort of way. There...
Although supposedly a novel, it's really a bunch of loosely strung together short stories. This was nothing like Lady's Own Detective Agency, which is delightful. The humor in the book was just too subtle for me. There were a few funny parts but mostly it just seemed like a dork of a guy whose life ...
Very witty stuff! Almost Wodehousian. Portuguese Irregular Verbs follows an uptight German Romance languages professor struggling for the respect he feels is owed him and his 1000+ page book on Portuguese irregular verbs. If you like your wordplay humor in the dry British style with a light dash of ...
 by Alexander McCall Smith, Iain Mcintosh, now listed on BookLikes)
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