Your Inner Hedgehog

 Your Inner Hedgehog

Reviewed By  Grasshopper2       July 18, 2025

 

Author  Alexander McCall Smith

Distributor:      Amazon
ISBN:                 978-1039000209
Publisher:         Penguin Random House
Release Date:   2021  

   Website:   https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/669780/your-inner-hedgehog-by-alexander-mccall-smith/

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A Professor Dr von Igelfeld Entertainment (Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld) 

, in these gloomy times, you would like a little light-hearted relief and a chuckle or two I would highly recommend Your Inner Hedgehog from Alexander McCall Smith. The first page will have you raising your eyebrows in surprise and disbelief. The main character is Professor Dr Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld. It was said that he would sell his grandmother to further his position and that of course explains why there were so few grandmothers at that time.

The Professor and his colleagues from the University of Regensberg Institute of Romance Philology are quietly proud of their pursuit of excellence and intellectual robustness. Indeed, the Professor has a published work, “Portuguese Irregular Verbs.” The library which he and the Librarian guard carefully, has twenty-three copies of this momentous work.

Knowing that it is their job to maintain a level of scholarship, they are surprised when a newcomer is employed as a deputy Librarian. She is young and decidedly not welcome. At the morning coffee break she follows the men into the tearoom. They stop as if frozen, then gently and politely inform her that this room is only for senior employees.

The following day, Dr Hilda Schreiber- Ziegler is asked to free up some shelf space in the library. After research she removes twenty-two copies of “Portuguese Irregular Verbs,” her reason being, only one has been borrowed and that was by the author. The consternation, not to mention fury, that this choice causes resonates loudly.

As we chuckle along with the antics of these archaic characters, there is time to reflect that not so long ago, their actions would have been acceptable and understood as part of the politics that happen in large institutions. So, a humorous tale with a “Let’s not forget,” element.

Fiction, General, Humour