The Book Hub 📙🐻

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Over the month of July, I've been trying to finish reading All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot and it was only a few days ago that I managed to finish it, after a full day of reading! Haha. Just like his previous book, I really enjoyed reading this memoir. In comparison to the last book, you can tell that James has gained more of a reputation as a Yorkshire country vet in the Dales. I felt like, as farmers got to know him a little bit better, you could tell what their final opinions were of him and whether or not they liked him because some of the farmers could be a bit rude sometimes. You could also figure out what James's final opinions were of the farmers and whether or not he liked them.  One time, James came back from a shift, all flustered and angry because a farmer was being quite ignorant of his work. Siegfried, his boss, told him to charge extra when the farmers are being mean. When him and James t...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, In James Herriot's book, All Things Bright and Beautiful, I read a chapter about how he had to work during Christmas and in the cold weather. It was quite funny, actually, because on Christmas Eve he was expecting to get a lie in the next day but he was actually awoken by a phone call which he originally thought was his alarm clock. The person who answered the phone was Mr Brown, the farmer, who had a cow down for milk fever. The farmer was quite mean and selfish because he told James to hurry up, he kept him behind after injecting the cow with medicine to voice his concerns about the other animals, and he complained about the vet bills being too expensive. I just found that that was incredibly ignorant of Mr Brown to do that. When James returned to Skeldale house, his wife Helen, said that he got another phone call at another farm about a female goat that was choking. The goat was called Dorothy and it turned out that she at...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, As I'm sure you all know already, I've been reading the second book of James Herriot's memoirs as a Yorkshire country vet. One of his friends/colleagues and brother to Siegfried, is Tristan. Tristan had quite a mischievous personality and was always known for making his older brother very angry. One time he crashed both of Siegried's only cars and this sent his brother over the edge because they needed the cars to carry all the expensive veterinary equipment and to get from farm to farm so it was certainly an inconvenience. However, this time, he did something even worse. There was a country myth going around that this monk would turn up by this chapel on a specific night and as soon as the drivers saw him by the road, they would rev up their engines and soar up the road. Little did they know that it was actually Tristan! One time, he played the prank on James and heard him soar off into the distance after coming ...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, I feel like I've been talking a lot about Sarah Helm's book, If This Is A Woman and I've kind of been neglecting some of my other books that I've been reading so today, I'm going to talk about James Herriot. If you don't know already, I'm reading his second memoir, All Things Bright and Beautiful because I really liked his first book and I thought that I would delve into the second. We all know the challenges of being a vet. Especially a Yorkshire country vet like James. Sometimes you have to separate you social life at home, with your working life on farms. This can be very difficult because sometimes country vets get called in the middle of the night to deliver a calf and they have to work during the day to treat a large cattle group for husk. It can be very strenuous work. One thing that I would find the most difficult is when it comes to helping everyday stray pets. On his way back from a farm on...

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...

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...

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...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, As most of you know, I'm currently reading All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot and I thought that it would be fitting to give you some facts about who he is. Hope you enjoy! James Alfred Wight OBE, was born on the 3rd of October 1916 and died on the 23rd of February 1995. Well known by his pen name James Herriot, he was a writer and veterinary surgeon, who had years of experience in the veterinary industry. He wrote a series, which I'm currently reading, consisting of stories about animals and their owners. A spawn of series of movies and television series, which originated from his auto-biographical works, beginning with If Only They Could Talk, which started in 1970. Herriot was born in Sunderland, County Durham, England, to James and Hannah Bell Wight. The Wights moved from Brandling Street, Sunderland to Glasgow, Scotland from which James took up work as a ship plater and pianist for a local cinema and ...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Hi again! I feel like I haven't posted on this blog in literally the longest time. But I'm back. I have big plans to post more here in the new year so stay tuned for that. Anyway, as some of you may remember, I'm currently reading James Herriot's book All Creatures Great and small. A few years ago, I had knack at reading this book but found that the language was too difficult for me to understand so I left it and here I am now. It's actually a really funny collection of his memories. I'm currently on chapter 28 and with 45 chapters to go, I can already tell that it's going to be a good book. The funniest parts of the story are when James has to tend to animal owned by an old or stuck up farmer because they just immediately think that he lacks experience and he can't do the job. In one of the recent chapters I read, James had to tend to a cow who was breathing heavily and acting abnormally. The ...