My Family and Other Animals

by Gerald Durrell

Book Overview

The first book in Gerald Durrell's Corfu Trilogy: a bewitching account of a rare and magical childhood on the island of Corfu, which was the inspiration for the Masterpiece PBS series The Durrells in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0142004413
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.8" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

One of the funniest books of all time.

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.

Quite simply the funniest book I have read.

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.

Guaranteed to bring a smile to your face!

This book is my secret weapon against depression and the blues. I have never been able to read it without collapsing into helpless laughter (and I have lost count how many times I have read it!). In the book, GD describes his boyhood sojourn on the Greek island of Corfu and while the various animals and birds are fun, the most interesting specimens are the humans. Start with GD's own family, a wonderfully eccentric English mother, his 3 siblings with their own peculiar foibles, the innumerable friends on Corfu who add their own twists to the story and you have a bubbling cauldron indeed. The humor ranges from the tongue in cheek to the cannonball but it never lets up. The episode of the scorpions is my personal favorite but it is hard to pick a favorite when there are so many contenders. GD's descriptions of the various personages is superb and his retelling of anecdotes very good indeed. His particular gift is to make the non-human creatures interesting. Both human and non-human characters alike come alive and seem to spring from the pages. And GD's love for nature comes through in his descriptions of the surroundings; you can almost feel yourself in the story. One realizes that not only was GD a first rate naturalist, he was a very good writer as well. This book is a guaranteed pick-me-up; it will bring a smile to your face no matter how tired or sad you may be. A warning though: it is very dangerous to read this book in public. Before long you will be chuckling away to yourself as you turn the pages and people in your vicinity will start to harbor grave doubts as to your sanity!

Funniest Book Ever Written

I first read this book when I was ten. In the intervening years (too many to count) I have read it at least once a year. Every time I read it, I find something else that makes me laugh out loud. I have bought this book for everyone and recommend it to anyone who needs to run away to sunshine and laugh out loud. How I wish I could have known this family!