Unusual Uses for Olive Oil Book Review

Unusual Uses for Olive Oil: A Professor Dr von Igelfeld Entertainment Novel (4) by Alexander McCall Smith is the fourth book in this quirky series.  I read the first three over the last few years and enjoyed them once I got into them so I was excited to see that there was a new one.  I grabbed it when I was at the library and I looked forward to checking it out.

The book was about Dr. von Igelfeld and his friends at the Institute, Dr. Prinzel, Dr. Unterholzer, and Herr Huber.  Dr. von Igelfeld often gets into a lot of trouble because he find a way to stick his foot in his mouth without listening to what others are saying.  The first adventure is with an award for Dr. Unterholzer where he was nominated for an award but all of the qualifications were describing Dr. von Ingelfeld.  Dr. von Ingelfeld addressed his concern with the person responsible for the award who ended up being Herr Unterholzer (but not related).  Then, he is introduced to Frau Benz who was a charming widow.  He ends up offending her because he says that he doesn't like cars like Mercedes Benz which just happen to be her husband's company.  Later, he was on a retreat in the Alps to read articles and discuss it with University students.  During his free time, he decides that he should start walking more and ends up meeting up with a mountain climbing group which he joins.  He climbs to the top of a mountain and slips off the top and survives when all others have died.  He decides to start doing inspirational speeches and during his first one he prepared a 2 hour speech and they asked him to shrink it to 15 minutes.  He did because he thought it would be taken as rude and he got cheered and everyone was very excited by his speech.  Dr. von Ingelfeld is frequently making strange decisions that make others wonder what he is thinking but I hope that you pick it up to see what you think about his decisions.

The book was hard to start but once I got started, it was hard to stop.  There was a scientific humor that took a little more concentration then the regular Alexander McCall Smith novel.  Although I am pretty sure that people who get two doctorates should be respected, I don't think that they are called Professor Dr. Dr. which is quiet a mouthful.  I enjoyed the book and the humor after I got into the meat of the book.  I hope that you check out this series and see if you enjoy it as much as I do.  I recommend starting at the beginning but all the books stand on their own.  Let me know what you think about this strange series!!