Clara’s Verdict
There are certain audiobooks I return to not because they tell extraordinary stories, but because they remind me that ordinary life, observed closely enough, is extraordinary. All Things Wise and Wonderful is one of those. James Herriot’s third memoir collection – wrapping up Vets Might Fly and Vet in a Spin – finds him swapped from the windswept dales of Yorkshire to the smoke and clamour of wartime London as an RAF trainee. It shouldn’t work as a juxtaposition, and yet it does, precisely because Herriot’s genius has always been in the small moments: the worried farmer, the temperamental cow, the sheepdog that won’t quite behave. Narrated with absolute authority by Christopher Timothy, who made the role of Herriot his own on television, this is fifteen hours and fourteen minutes of genuine warmth. I defy anyone to listen without smiling at least twice per chapter.
This is not a book that demands anything of you. It asks only that you slow down enough to appreciate it. In a listening landscape crowded with thrillers and tension-ratcheted plot machines, that quiet confidence is, paradoxically, its greatest strength.
About the Audiobook
The third instalment in Herriot’s celebrated memoir series shifts the familiar rhythms of Darrowby life into a sharper relief. James is training as an RAF pilot – patriotic duty pulling him away from pregnant wife Helen, from the ongoing bickering of Siegfried and Tristan, and from the creature comforts (and discomforts) of country practice. The wartime setting lends a gentle melancholy that was somewhat absent from the earlier books: there is real tenderness in his longing for home, and a palpable anxiety about what comes next.
Yet Herriot is too much the humorist to let sentiment overwhelm the comedy. The chapters slip between his London RAF days and a flood of recalled Yorkshire memories – triggered, he tells us, by the smell of engine oil or a particular quality of winter light. Cedric the famously flatulent dog returns. Opinionated farmers deliver their verdicts on everything from the weather to modern veterinary medicine. And throughout, there is the Yorkshire landscape itself: austere, beautiful, unglamorous in the way only real places are.
The collection spans wartime anxieties with remarkable lightness of touch. This is not a war book. It is a book about what people carry with them when they are far from home – and what they discover, perhaps for the first time, that they truly value.
The Narration
Christopher Timothy is not merely a good narrator for this material: he is, by now, inseparable from it. His television portrayal of Herriot in All Creatures Great and Small ran for years, and the voice he brings – warm, slightly wry, with a Yorkshire colouring that never tips into caricature – fits the prose like a well-worn coat. He distinguishes between characters without resorting to pantomime accents, and his pacing is unhurried in exactly the right way. At fifteen hours and fourteen minutes, this is a long listen; in Timothy’s hands, it never feels it. The production from Macmillan Digital Audio is clean and assured. If you have not experienced Herriot on audio before, this is as good an introduction as any.
What Readers Say
Listeners are consistently enthusiastic. With a rating of 4.7 out of 5, the response is warm even if the number of reviews remains modest at 8. Readers describe the books as “funny and sometimes sad” and praise the insights they offer into “simpler times and good, hard-working honest folk.” One listener called it “a real tonic to today’s ever busy world,” adding that reading it over breakfast “really does set me up for a happier, calmer, more levelled day.” A more critical voice noted that the structure – memories prompted by RAF experience – gives the flow a slightly different quality from the earlier volumes, but conceded it remains “full of unusual characters, pathos and humour.”
- Amazon Customer (5.0 stars): “Love the James Herrriot books, they are funny and sometimes sad. Definitely recommend.”
- Craobh Rua (5.0 stars): “James Herriot’s books have been adapted by the BBC for a long running tv show and again, more recently, by Channel 5.”
- AJS (5.0 stars): “The books really do offer great insights to simpler times and good hard working honest folk and their community. A real tonic to today’s ever busy world.”
Who Should Listen?
Anyone who appreciates quietly excellent writing delivered without fuss. All Things Wise and Wonderful is particularly suited to listeners who enjoyed the BBC television adaptations of All Creatures Great and Small, those who love British rural history, and anyone who simply wants something that will make them feel, temporarily, that the world is a more decent place than the news would have us believe. It works beautifully on a commute, during a long drive through the countryside, or as an evening wind-down. This is the third book in the series, but it functions well as a standalone – though you may find yourself backtracking to the earlier volumes once you’ve finished.
Listen to All Things Wise and Wonderful on Audible UK – and let Christopher Timothy carry you back to Darrowby.
