Satisfaction in creation

I was probably eleven or twelve when I first picked up James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small. To this day, it remains one of my all-time favorite go-to books for a good laugh. Herriot has a gift for impeccable depictions of idiosyncrasy, and his books neatly temper the absurd and hilarious with the somber and uplifting.

A few months ago, I discovered that Herriot’s son had written a biography of his father, and I had to read it. And I only love the man more.

Toward the end of the book...