An Irish Country Doctor

I'm not even sure where I first heard about An Irish Country Doctor, by Patrick Taylor, but when I looked it up on Amazon, it looked like it might be a fun read- and it was. An Irish Country Doctor is about just that- a young doctor, Barry Laverty, just out of residency, who goes to the village Ballybucklebo to work with an established physician (who is a character in himself, with quite unconventional techniques.) As you can imagine, there are all sorts of eccentric people in the village who Barry meets up with as he works to establish himself. The Amazon reviewers compared Taylor's writing to that of James Herriot and Jan Karon. The overall story reminded me very much of the Herriot books- Barry travels around the village and has run ins with various and assorted people, as he tries to get his bearings in a difficult profession. And while I thought this was a fun book, it somehow lacked the spark that makes Herriot's books laughy-out-loud funny- I can't quite put my finger on what was missing, but not quite the same. And while there are definite similarities between this book and Jan Karon's Mitford series, An Irish Country Doctor didn't have the saccharine sweetness that Karon's books have (that's a good thing- sweet is fine at times, but it gets to be too much really quickly.) So, overall, I can recommend this as a great summer read- not too heavy and deep, but very entertaining.