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Showing posts from February, 2019

Did James Herriot's book All Things Bright and Beautiful live up to my assumptions?

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, A couple weeks ago, I did an assumptions post on James Herriot's second book. One of the things that I assumed would happen was that James would join the war. In fact he does. Only when I finished reading the first book did I realise that it said on the first page 'with the exception of his wartime service in the RAF.' This suggests that he had served in the war. However, in chapter 2 of the second book, he clearly states that he won't be talking about his time during the war since it's not a wartime story. I can understand why he didn't decide to write about it since that would take away from the other important aspects of his life such as helping the farm animals. I also assumed that James and Helen would be married and I was correct. In the last few chapters of the first book, they get married within a month! In the second book, they seem to be living happily despite James's late night shifts at 2 i...

Book review on James Herriot's book All Creatures Great and Small

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Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Today I'm going to review James Herriot's book All Creatures Great and Small which is basically a collection of his memoirs being a Yorkshire country vet. I really enjoyed this book and it gave me a new perspective on being a Yorkshire country vet which before I read this, I didn't consider it to be a particularly interesting occupation. Now I've found that it is a challenging job, especially since James had to parade around in a car with no brakes through S-bend roads in the Dales! He also had to deal with challenging clients at the beginning of his career, which due to the fact he was only just starting out, they thought he wouldn't be good at his job. Most of the time he managed to prove them wrong, but other times he embarrassed himself by doing the job completely wrong. He also had to deal with forgetful Siegfried Farnon who although he encouraged James to get married to Helen Alderson as soon as possible...

Why do I pick up a book?- Ranting Tuesdays

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Why do I pick up a book? Most of the time, I get attracted to a book by its beautiful cover. They always say, don't judge a book by its cover but when an author spends extra time on what the book looks like on the outside, it always makes you want to read what's on the inside. This is why I like Jacqueline Wilson books because Nick Sharratt spends a lot of time talking to the author about the book so he can really understand the characters and the storyline and so consequently, his illustrations turn out amazing. Although the majority of the time I pick out a book by its cover, when no book cover seems to be screaming out to me, I also like to just cover my eyes and pick a book randomly off the shelf. I've done this a few times now and although the book cover didn't always look nice, I often found that the storyline was really good. Sometimes a little spontaneity whilst choosing a book is a good thing to als...

What's the next book after James Herriot's memoir, All Creatures Great and Small?- TBR Tuesday

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Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, As I'm sure some of you may know, the sequel to the book I'm currently reading now is All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot. As I'm reaching an end to his first novel, All Creatures Great and Small its time to talk about the next book I'll be reading. I read the blurb of All Things Bright and Beautiful and already, I seem rather intrigued. Knowing from the first book that James found some of the medicines of that time fairly useless, especially the tuberculin testing on cows, his second book is about him entering a new decade, the 30s where medical science is improving. I am intrigued to find out how quick some of his treatments just a few years back are like now. As we all know, around this point, Britain is on the verge of war. I am curious to find out whether he joins the war or not and leaves behind his job as a vet since on the blurb it says "with Britain on the verge of war, James faces a dec...

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