Alexander McCall Smith, Your Inner Hedgehog

Your Inner Hedgehog is the fifth book in Alexander McCall Smith’s delightful series focusing on Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, renowned author of the masterwork Portuguese Irregular Verbs and senior scholar at the Institute of Romance Philology in Regensburg, Germany. As usual, the story focuses on the small irritations and points of pride that motivate von Igelfeld and his colleagues. McCall Smith helpfully begins the book with a breakdown of the characters who populate the Institute. Among them is a relative newcomer, Dr. Hilda Schreiber-Ziegler, deputy librarian under the tedious head librarian, Herr Huber. The first sign of trouble is when Dr. Schreiber-Ziegler fails to recognize the accepted protocols surrounding access to the Institute’s Senior Coffee Room—the rarefied air of which place is not for the likes of mere deputy librarians. The resulting clash sees von Igelfeld and his compatriots fighting against progressives who would throw open the coffee room doors, et alia, and generally disrupt the Institute’s “current way of doing things.”

This installment in the series was published in 2021, a full ten years after book four (Unusual Uses for Olive Oil) appeared. (The first three installments were originally all published in 2003.) This fifth novel differs from the others in that it tells a single story, while the previous books are collections of related stories. It's a shame there aren't more von Igelfeld books, but I suppose McCall Smith has his hands full with the numerous other series he keeps updated. These are favorites, though.