Never Turn Your Back on an Angus Cow: My Life as a Country Vet by Dr Jan Pol

The background image is from Pexels.

Before I start ranting about books, I have to say two things, especially if you are seeing this on my blog (which the likelihood is high that you are): I did have a horrible mental health day since I panicked regarding making posts and you will be able to sense it in my book tag ‘introduction.’ I’m feeling better today, but I decided to keep it in that post still since it is an honest image of how mental health affects my physical health and vice versa.

On a happier note, I found my first two 2025 releases to read. The Drowning Game by Barbara Nickless is a mystery thriller in which Nadia is trying to figure out what really happened to her sister. It is on Kindle Unlimited if you have access to it. The other one is Wings to Soar by Tina Athaide, and it’s a middle-grade written in verse about Viva and her family being expelled from which I believe is Viva’s birth country and them being forced to enter a refugee camp in England. From the few pages I read, I’m expecting some great discussion on how society views refugees.

A memoir I read a few days ago is Never Turn Your Back on an Angus Cow: My Life as a Country Vet by Jan Pol. I found this book around the time I found out the show was ending. I was so fuelled by emotion that I couldn’t watch old episodes, let alone the book, so I had to leave it and come back to it. Now, my thoughts on the show and book are slightly biased since my grandpa, who passed before I was born, was a vet and, from the stories I was told about him, was very similar to Dr Pol’s character.

Dr Pol was born in the Netherlands and grew up on a dairy farm. I was amazed at how the Germans acted towards his family during the war. Then his sister moved to the USA, so he decided to move with her to vet school. It was around this time that he met his wife, Diane. Something I admire about the Pols is that even when they didn’t have much, they still helped in their community.

This nonfiction was published more than ten years ago, so I was curious what he would change/add if it were written more recently. Typical me, I enjoyed learning about animals and how to take care of them. Am I the only one who finds rating memoirs tricky? By the way, my recent rating is four stars.

Alex


,

Leave a comment