Quirky patients, one-of-a-kind employees, and farm animals set the stage for this humorous, tender, and sometimes irreverent saga of Dr. Carroll James's dental practice. Headphone-clad patients bop in the dental chair while Dr. James tries to work on the moving target; a long-timer happily drops her pants to show off her latest surgical scar; and a lost cell phone drops out of a patient's boxer shorts.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Working from his rural home office, Dr. James juggles family, patients, staff, and occasional livestock as he struggles to maintain his...

Whether attending decidedly awkward dinner parties or hayseed weddings complete with karaoke and inebriated attendants, or risking life and limb to aid the impoverished in Belize and Peru (with near-drastic results of misspoken Spanish), there’s a story for everyone in this third installment of Dr. Carroll James’s series of rollicking and touching memoirs.

And Nothing but the Tooth offers up a continuation of bizarre episodes during Dr. James’s forty-plus years of dental practice—including perhaps the worst hires in employment history. On the...