My Family and Other Animals [Paperback]

Gerald Durrell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 1977

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As a self-described "champion of small uglies," English writer 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.

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.'

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (March 31, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140013997
• ISBN-13: 978-0140013993
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (121 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,612,459 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite simply the funniest book I have read., October 2, 2004

By 

D. M. Summers (Cambridge, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Family and Other Animals (Paperback)

As a young boy I was forced, with some considerable reluctance, to read 'My Family and Other Animals' by one of teachers at my school in England, 'in order to improve my vocabulary'. All is forgiven, Mr Cox, for within my rather battered copy lurked, without doubt, the most hilarious account of familial eccentricity, and light-hearted feuding that I have ever come across.

The book, as Mr Durrell explains in introduction, was intended to describe the glorious flora and fauna of Corfu, a greek island where he spent some time as a child. In this goal, he has succeeded admirably, as the whole atmosphere of the island is exquisitely recreated, to an extent that even on a rainy afternoon in Sidcup, it is not difficult to be transported to a sunny morning in the Aegean watching a young Gerry discovering a nest of a trapdoor spider, or perhaps discovering something of the mating rituals of the greek tortoise.

It is in the descriptions of the family, however, where this book really comes to life. As Mr Durrell describes in the introduction, the family, as in life, once they had begun to appear, muscled their way into the rest of pages as well. From tales of the rotund, pretentious Larry (Lawrence Durrell, of the Alexandria Quartet fame), the gun-mad Leslie and the 'muslin and gauze' swathed sister, Margot, to the desciptions the long-suffering mother, the family had me laughing out loud at the most inopportune moments.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I read it regularly, and am still crying with laughter all the way through. Not only a splendid book for the evocative descriptions of the natural history, this is the most witty book I have ever read.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wish I could give it 6 stars!, June 27, 2005

By 

David Lundberg "author of OLYMPIC WANDERING" (Greensboro, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Family and Other Animals (Paperback)

This book is absolutely, brilliantly funny. The wit and unique characterizations are woven with great descriptions of the animals and plants of Corfu. That Durrell can hold the attention of readers who have no interest in biology simply demonstrates what a fine work this is. Gerald's depiction of a larger-than-life expatriate family on a larger-than-life Greek island is a tremendous celebration of life. The variety of different Greek characters parading through this book rivals the variety of Corfu's flora and fauna. Absolute great read!

Reviewed by David Lundberg, author of Olympic Wandering: Time Travel Through Greece

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the funniest books of all time., February 22, 2005

By 

Leslie C. Scanlan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Family and Other Animals (Paperback)

I usually only have time to read at night. I keep a book by my bedside and if I awaken in the middle of the night, instead of worrying, I read. This isn't the best book to use in this fashion. I have, on several occasions, awakened and thought, "I'll just read a few pages" only to find myself engulfed in oxygenated laughter that has kept me up for the duration of the night. I don't know when I've laughed out loud so often at a book. The mother is the mother we've all always wanted...and she was no doubt the perfect mother for this child. Who else could take in stride the unleashing from a matchbox of a small cache of scorpions during dinner. I will reread this book again and again. Such light hearted appreciation of nature is a rare find. This would be a great gift for any child or adult who loves the outdoors. Very special and very rare.