The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom contains the three novels about von Igelfeld so far published, Portugese Irregular Verbs, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs (which I’ve read before) and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances. Neither of the other two, PIV or AVRC, are quite as laugh-out-loud-funny as TFPSD was, but they are quite unmissable none the less. The mixture of self-importance and petty academic squabbles von Igelfeld and his colleagues present with the sheer humanity of their actions in finer moments makes one want to nod and shake one’s head at the same time (a form of movement which makes it quite difficult to keep reading, I can tell you).