Product Description

This book is soaked in the sunshine of Corfu where the author lived as a boy with his 'Family and other Animals.' It is a matter of personal taste whether one most enjoys the family, with its many eccentric hangers-on, or the animals Gerry studies and brings back to the strawberry pink, the daffodil-yellow, or the snow-white villa. The procession includes toads, and tortoises, bats and butterflies scorpions and geckos, ladybirds, glow-worms, octopuses and rose-beetles, Quasimodo the pigeon, the puppies Widdle and Puke, and of course the magpies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82582 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
As a self-described "champion of small uglies," Gerald Durrell (1925-1995) devoted his life to writing and the preservation of wildlife, from the Mauritius pink pigeon to the Rodriques fruit bat. My Family and Other Animals was intended to embrace the natural history of the Greek island of Corfu, but ended up as a delightful account of his family's experiences that were, according to him, "rather like living in one of the more flamboyant and slapstick comic operas".

As a 10-year-old boy, Gerry left England for Corfu with "all those items that I thought necessary to relieve the tedium of a long journey: four books on natural history, a butterfly net, a dog, and a jam-jar full of caterpillars all in imminent danger of turning into chrysalids". Durrell's descriptions of his family and its many eccentric hangers-on (he stresses that "all the anecdotes about the island and the islanders are absolutely true") are highly entertaining, as is the procession of toads, scorpions, geckos, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, the puppies Widdle and Puke, and the Magenpies. This is a lovely book. --Christine Buttery

About the Author
Gerald Durrell was born in 1925 at Jamshedpur, India. In 1928 his family returned to England and then went to live on the Continent. They settled on the island of Corfu, and during this time he made a special study of zoology and kept a large number of local wild animals as pets. In 1945 he joined the staff of Whipsnade Park as a student keeper and in 1947 he financed, organized and led his first animal-collecting expedition to the Cameroons. He undertook numerous further expeditions, visiting Paraguay, Argentina, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Mauritius, Assam and Madagascar. His first television programme, 'Two in the Bush', was made in 1962 when he and his first wife travelled to New Zealand, Australia and Malaya. He went on to make seventy programmes out of his trips around the world. In 1959 he founded the Jersey Zoological Park, of which he was Director, and in 1964 he founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust. He was awarded the OBE in 1982. As a self-described 'champion of small uglies', Durrell dedicated his life to the preservation of wildlife, and it is through his efforts that creatures such as the Mauritius pink pigeon and the Rodrigues fruit bat have avoided extinction. Encouraged to write about his life's work by his novelist brother Lawrence, Durrell published his first book, The Overloaded Ark, in 1953. It soon became a bestseller and he went on to write thirty-six other titles, including My Family and Other Animals, The Bafut Beagles, Encounters with Animals, The Drunken Forest, A Zoo in My Luggage, The Whispering Land, Menagerie Manor, The Amateur Naturalist, The Aye-Aye and I and, with Lee Durrell, Durrell in Russia. Gerald Durrell died in 1995. Speaking about him to the Times Charles Secrett, Director of Friends of the Earth, said 'He was one of the first people to wake the world up to what was happening to the environment. His books and programmes helped a whole new generation of environmentalists come into being.'

Customer Reviews

Aged five or Fifty this book will enthrall
When I was younger I loved this book for the enthusiastic, humourous & accurate descriptions of the numerous little creatures the young Gerald encountered & collected during his time in Corfu. Revisiting this book recently I discovered that it had lost none of it's magic & had even managed to gain some. Opening this book feels like walking out into the hot Corfu sunshine & smelling the Cypresses in the air. Durrell's descriptions are wonderful, of the earwig with her babies, the different coloured houses, and last but not least the Durrell family & friends. Despite reading some of the excellent Laurence Durrell's books I can't help but to think of him as big Brother Larry yelling at Gerald to get rid of the latest creepy crawly brought into the house. All in all a wonderful book thoroughly recomended by myself & everyone I know who have read it.

dream-esque
This is such simple yet wonderful book. It really does transport you into a world of dreams, hilarious oddities and unfazed youthfull dreams. Including heart-warming and trully individual characters, through the eyes of an endearing young boy, this creation of loveliness is a must for anyone who still remenices over hazy childhood summers with a rush of happiness.

A book reread over and over
I first read this book when I was ten years old, and it has never stopped entertaining me. With Spiro's language, and his daring theft of the King of Greece's goldfish, Larry's extreme hilarious selfishness, to the picnic with the 'magenpies' causing havoc, not to mention the French language tutoring, this book is studded with great stories of a budding naturist. It is surely one of my all time favourite Durrell books.