All Creatures Great and Small is a compilation of two of Herriot's earlier works. His stories focus on his experience as a young vet beginning his career in the 1940s Yorkshire Dales, and are in turn amusing, heartwarming, and insightful. I thought, being an electrical engineer, that I'd be unable to relate to or fully appreciate his accounts- I was dead wrong. Though different in letter, his work-related encounters are eerily similar in spirit, and remind me that, regardless of vocation, we all share similar joys, trials, amusements, and comical encounters with idiosyncratic colleagues in our careers and lives.
I began reading assuming that the story was simply a truthful recollection of his life. I've since found that Herriot tweaked some narratives as suited his fancy; in other cases, he changed the names of towns and people, or merged several locales/characters he knew into one entity, to suit the story. So, his tales are based on truth, but the actual events may have differed. The chapters are generally short, and not necessarily connected with the previous- making it both easy to read in sections, and frustrating if you prefer a well-flowing, connected narrative (later chapters do, at times, reference previous ones, but it seems more like journal entries than a continuous tale). Once I got used to the style, I enjoyed it more.
Overall, this is a good read, especially if you live in Yorkshire and are familiar with the scenery and people of the Dales.
Rating: A-
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