All Creatures Great and Small

Recommended by Steve

In 1972, the book All Creatures Great and Small was published in the United States. The title of the book in the United States comes from the poem "All Creatures Great and Small" by Cecil Francis Alexander. The book was written by the Scottish-born veterinarian Alf Wight, who worked in rural Yorkshire in northern England. Biographer Graham Lord writes of Wight’s novel, All Creatures Great and Small, as “a homely, humorous fictionalized account of one year in the life of a country vet. It was set in the 1930s, before the discovery of antibiotics, when a vet had to rely on grisly old equipment and deal with rough country farmers” (Lord 1). James Herriot is a pseudonym of Alf Wight. The structure of All Creatures Great and Small is a sixty-seven-chapter book that forms a collective narrative. I do think the reader should think of All Creatures Great and Small as a collection of short stories. The characters of Siegfried and Tristan Fanon are based on Wight’s real-life professional veterinarian partners, Donald Sinclair and Brian Sinclair. Wright is a skilled writer, and his novel, All Creatures Great and Small, is a look at the life of a veterinarian in rural Yorkshire in the 1930s. Wight loves the landscape, geography, and the people of Yorkshire, which comes through in his All Creatures Great and Small. Works Cited: Lord, Graham. 1997. James Herriot: The Life of a Country Vet. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Incorporated.

Read by Mel: Mel loved the book and looks forward to reading his other works.

Gentle, joyous, like a soft sunrise

It’s been ages since I first read these beautiful books, and they’ve only become better with age. Full of quiet moments of beauty, interspersed with genuine tension, observations of both human and animal nature, I just love these stories.

Today Dhir presented the book summary for the International bestseller _Thinking, Fast and Slow_. *There exists two systems within our brain*: "Reactive system" that is designed to arrive at conclusion instantly. It is formed on the basis of our experiences, beliefs, our upbringing and years of practice. It is designed to not burden the brain and enabling it to function in auto pilot mode by leveraging our perception, intuition and associative memory. Murali illustrated the point through an exercise. Repeat SILK 5 times, now answer the Q - "What does cow drink". If your answer is Milk then it's this system answering and associative memory kicking in. On the the other hand, "lazy system" gives more thought. It makes you pause and think of the context and reasons before jumping to conclusions. Obviously, it requires more energy and effort from our end to use this system resources. Imagine a seasoned driver who is able to chat with others in the car, answer phone calls and gaze out of the window all of this while driving. This is the first system at work. On the other hand, someone who is learning to drive, requires second system to pitch in and would not like to be disturbed while their gaze is fixed on road ahead. There are physiological cues like heart rate and dilation of pupils that indicate which system is currently functioning. *Is one better than other?* We require both. However, it is critical to judge the situation and make a conscious choice between "Thinking fast and thinking slow". If we have some inconsequential and everyday decisions to make, we have to rely on first system's ability to make quick choices. For impactful decisions like investments, we invariably use the second system. Important is to be aware which system is under work and switch to second one to avoid making a mistake by making an easy choice. Like always there were multiple associated discussions on believing in random successes, reversion to mean, correlation Vs causation, anchoring and Marshmallow experiment on delayed gratification. A great and enlightening discussion as always.