Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals: A Memoir of Life on Corfu

Stephanie Seifert: Dieses Buch ist ein Klassiker. Es ist gut geschrieben und ich habe es als Reiselektüre für Korfu (wo die Geschichte spielt) gekauft. Kann ich sehr empfehlen!

Germany on Oct 28, 2023

Cesar R.: Libro interesante para cualquier edad. Un clásico. Lo compré para mi hijo de 9 años y le gustó mucho. A mi también.

Spain on Oct 07, 2023

Steph Usher: It’s the 1st book I ever read, I ended up reading all of the series, I was 16 at the time ,a big thank you to Gerald Durrell 👵🏻

Australia on Oct 06, 2023

Amazon Customer: I love the size and gold on the pages. Beautiful gift book!

United States on Sep 19, 2023

Mamabotanica: This was a mostly entertaining read. I had co flicking feelings about Gerald’s fascination with animals. He loved them but (at this age anyway) in a very possessive way. It also made me wistful for the way the Island was when he lived there. The descriptions of the flora and fauna were incredible. The human characters weren’t as full as the natural history.

United States on Aug 26, 2023

Tinatin S.: Book is beautiful and content is great!

United States on Jul 28, 2023

Shirley L. RobertsonShirley L. Robertson: Kudos to the seller. The book was even nicer than described. The condition is excellent. It arrived very quickly, just a few days after I ordered it, and I've just started to read it, but it's enjoyable already -- even the introduction is funny. I saw the Amazon Prime video series, so I know what to expect, and from what I've read so far, I am very pleased. Thank you !!!

United States on Jun 24, 2023

Constant Reader: What a delightful surprise this book was! We loved the Durrells in Corfu on Masterpiece Theater, but it never occurred to me that little Gerry who spent much of his boyhood running wild around the island would be such a gifted writer. The language is beautiful and evocative without ever being pretentious. He has a wonderful talent for writing humor. Granted he, his family, and the inhabitants of Cordu provide ample source material for the humor but writing it down in a way that can delight a reader and inspire laughter takes talent. The book covers part of the time that the British Durrell family (widowed mother Louise and her four children) lived on the island of Corfu. It is charming, engaging, and highly diverting. The book is set in the middle 1930’s and that adds interest. It is not remotely dated. I can practically guarantee that you will finish this book and feel less stress and anxiety than you did before you read it. And, if you are like me, you will plunge forward into the rest of the trilogy.

United States on Oct 23, 2022

Lady Fancifull: I first read this, Volume 1 of Durrell’s Corfu Childhood books, when I was probably around the same age as the period of his life he is describing. The book absolutely resonated with me, with its love of landscape. Durrell rather ascribes almost a sentience, not only towards the ‘other animals’ which this book is largely about, but to the very mountains, vegetation, winds, waves, sunlight and rain. This was very much my own view of the natural world, so reading Durrell, as a child, was a kind of coming home to how I felt about ‘nature’

However……..at the time I read this, Durrell’s sensibilities gave me clear indication that I was, after all, not going to be cut out to be a naturalist myself. Although a clear lover of the wild, unconfined, natural world, and of the animal kingdom, he quickly made me realise that I was a definitely restricted speciesist – plants were wonderful, but my real love was for the warm-blooded furred and feathered creatures. Durrell delights in all of it, the slithering, the buzzing, the finny, the scaled, and anything which scuttles on somewhere between 6, 8 and a multiplicity of uncountable legs.

I had utterly forgotten...

United Kingdom on Aug 06, 2017

Iona Main Stewart: This is the first volume of Gerard Durrell's Corfu trilogy.

It's the story of the Durrell family's stay on the Greek island of Corfu in the 30s just before World War II.

The family, whose members are described in a hilarious manner, consists of Mother, Larry, Leslie, Margo and, of course, Gerry.

Mother, the head of the family, is mostly concerned with concocting delicious meals, and otherwise appeasing the various family members, these being overly inclined to argue with each other, as well as hushing them when they say something improper. Larry, the eldest, is intellectual, highly knowledgeable about literary matters and continually making critical and satirical remarks. He later becomes a famous writer, his most renowned work being “The Alexandria Quartet”. The second son is Leslie, who is enamoured of guns, ballistics in general, and hunting. Margo, the only girl, is portrayed as rather naïve and with a habit of using proverbs but picking the wrong key words in these proverbs when flustered- “After all, you only die once!” She sews and paints pictures. Then of course there's the youngest, the author, Gerry; in this trilogy he is perpetually...

United Kingdom on Jun 14, 2016