Review by Booklist Review
Two decades after the publication of All Creatures Great and Small--followed by All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Things Wise and Wonderful, and The Lord Made Them All (in 1981)--veterinarian Herriot continues his anecdotal recollections of work among the animals and people of his beloved Yorkshire Dales, this time in the 1950s. In the course of the memoir, he and his wife, Helen, move from Skeldale House and eventually settle in an idyllic home in a small village on the edge of the wild. Tristan, fellow assistant to elder vet Siegfried Farnon, is replaced, notably by Calum Buchanan, who arrives with a pet badger draped over one shoulder and soon acquires an entire menagerie of animals and birds. Importantly, Herriot makes the most of new medical techniques and "miracle" drugs and, without deserting large farm animals, becomes more involved in small-animal practice. An established readership and a viewing audience (from the public television series) promise demand--and the author's rare ability to tell a story, hilarious or touching, assures that his admirers will not be disappointed. (Reviewed Aug. 1992)031208188XBarbara Duree
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Herriot's many fans will not be disappointed by his latest, which picks up the story of his veterinary practice in Yorkshire after WW II. BOMC main selection and 22-week PW bestseller in cloth. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Reading Herriot's book is like listening to the stories of a very old friend. Familiar. Comforting. A little repetitious. His stories of veterinary work in the Yorkshire dales ( All Creatures Great and Small , LJ 8/72; All Things Bright and Beautiful , LJ 10/15/74) have brought to many city folk a sense of wonder and an understanding of the life of a country vet and his patients, both human and animal. In this collection, an older and perhaps more tired Herriot struggles with bad - tempered farmers, difficult diagnoses, an assistant who travels with a live badger, and his own pet cats, who will have nothing to do with him. While the stories and settings hark back to his previous works, the humor and spark are missing. The older Herriot struggles to maintain the wonder and merriment of his youth but gets bogged down in the mundane aspects of shopping for a house and seems numbed rather than heartbroken by the death of some of his patients. Demand will warrant multiple copies, but for the first-time Herriot reader, recommend his earlier works. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/92.-- Debra Schneider, Virginia Henderson Internat. Nursing Lib., Indianapolis (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by School Library Journal Review
YA-- A master storyteller continues the charming account of his experiences as veterinarian in rural Yorkshire. And although there are more cats and dogs as patients than before, there are plenty of large farm animals to deal with, frequently during the middle of the night. The detailed but succinct descriptions of people, places, and animals are a delight. Herriot's unusual ability to identify individual characters, both human and four-legged, brings them to life--even for the most urban American. The endearing strand weaving all episodes together is the constant devotion of man to animal and animal to man. Chapters are short, the pace is rapid, and the stories are very easy to read--perfect for unmotivated readers. The author's keen sense of humor will bring smiles to the faces of YAs, particularly when he tells a joke on himself. Nonfiction at its most entertaining best.-- Claudia Moore, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Smashingly good sequel to the beloved veterinarian's earlier memoirs, and well worth the ten-year wait since The Lord God Made Them All. Although no exact dates are given, Herriot seems to pick up just where he left off, in the 1960's in rural Yorkshire, when veterinary medicine was still a barehanded, rough-and-tumble affair, with farm animals the main patients and infection a constant threat. (Herriot seems to spend half his time slipping on cow turds or with his arm up a cow's vagina, helping a birthing calf see the light of day.) The author's superbly gifted partner, Siegfried, is back, as is Herriot's loving wife, Helen. But the practice has expanded and much of the good feeling here involves two assistants: John Crooks, who goes on to become a world-class vet, and Calum Buchanan, eccentric supreme, who eats ducks with feathers attached and collects a menagerie of badgers, foxes, monkeys, and rabbits before setting out for Papua New Guinea. Herriot buys a house; dresses like a buffoon to save a client's farm; comes down with a dreadful cow disease; tends to our old friend Tricky Woo, Mrs. Pumphrey's spoiled Pekingese; and, in general, sheds his benign presence on a zooful of animals and a zooful of human beings. The milieu is deliciously familiar--``a dirty, dangerous job'' made glorious by ``the whole rich life.'' So is the moral--that love of animals is synonymous with love of human beings, and that there can never be too much of either. Crafted with foxy intelligence and angelic compassion: proof that for a ``vitnery'' in the Yorkshire dales, life is bliss--and bliss, too, for a few hours at least, for happy readers. (Book-of- the-Month Dual Selection for October)
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