All Things Bright and Beautiful
Sep 17th, 2007 by Bethany
Today I fished reading All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot again. It's the second book in the American publication of Herriot's series called All Creatures Great and Small. James Herriot is one of the few authors I feel I can recommend without any real reservation to my friends and family. His books are semi-autobiographical novels about his life being a country veterinarian in Yorkshire. The stories I like best are about funny situations he runs into as he's doing his veterinary rounds. Stories like the one about the dog that never forgave him for clipping his nails or about the time everyone at a fair hated him for measuring their horses correctly and not letting them cheat. He also describes the changes in his profession as agriculture shifts from work horses to machines and as antibiotics revolutionized medicine. Near the end of All Things Bright and Beautiful, he describes his first miraculous experience with antibiotics and how exciting it was to finally have a medicine that would really help animals sick with serious bacterial diseases.
I looked Herriot up on the Wikipedia today and found out that Herriot is a pen name–his real name is James Alfred Wight. Many of the place names and the names of people in his books are changed, and the chronology is often out of order. But the whole series heartwarming and funny and friendly and makes me happy when I'm grumpy. So, go read it. I've also heard that there are film versions and even a BBC series, but I haven't seen them so I don't know first-hand if they're any good. Let me know if you've seen them and like them.