Every Living Thing is the fifth and final installment in James Herriot's wonderful collection of memoirs of life as a country vet in North Yorkshire from the 1930s to 1950s. The series began with Herriot as a newly qualified vet seeking work in All Creatures Great and Small, eventually progressed to newly-married, enlisted-airman Herriot in All Things Wise and Wonderful and now concludes with Herriot as an established presence in the dales, his children school-aged, his practice thriving. (For the curious: books two and four are All Things Bright and Beautiful and The Lord God Made Them All.)
Every Living Thing was every little thing I've come to expect from Herriot by now: well-written, humorous, sweet (without being "owerly" sappy), filled with the essence of a time and place that no longer exist. By the 1950s, Herriot and his partner, Siegfried, are (at the urging of their newly qualified assistant!) diving into small animal work, which is clearly the wave of the future. In that way, the anecdotes that fill this volume take place as often in the surgery as in the open fields.
The book - and memoirs - end in a good place: it's clear that by the late 1950s, the major shifts - toward antibiotics and more extensive operations and away from draught horses and hand-milking, for example - have already taken place. Thought Herriot continued to practice for many years, the real story has already been told. That said, I admit to a pang of sadness upon completing this series.
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