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My Family and Other Animals | 
 enlarge | Author: Gerald Durrell
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy Used: $5.00
You Save: $9.00 (64%)
New (35) Used (26) from $5.00
Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 30798
Media: Paperback
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0142004413
Dewey Decimal Number: 508.4955
EAN: 9780142004418
ASIN: 0142004413
Publication Date: June 29, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
When the unconventional Durrell family can no longer endure the damp, gray English climate, they do what any sensible family would do: sell their house and relocate to the sunny Greek isle of Corfu. My Family and Other Animals was intended to embrace the natural history of the island but ended up as a delightful account of Durrell s family s experiences, from the many eccentric hangers-on to the ceaseless procession of puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies into their home.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
I wish I could give it 6 stars! June 28, 2005
David Lundberg (Greensboro, NC USA)
27 out of 27 found this review helpful
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
Quite simply the funniest book I have read. October 2, 2004
D. M. Summers (Cambridge, UK)
25 out of 25 found this review helpful
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.
One of the funniest books of all time. February 22, 2005
Leslie C. Scanlan
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
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.
A pleasant summer read! July 20, 2006
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
My Family and Other Animals is about a ten-year-old boy named Gerald who moves to the sun-soaked island Corfu, Greece with his family to escape the dreary and gloomy climate in London. There, he encounters many different animals and people. I absolutely loved this book because it was really funny. There was a lot of action in this book. Durrell lovingly described each and every animal that he owned. He also told every detail of the settings, so I felt like I was really in Corfu!
If you want to spend your money wisely, use it on this book!
....Tears-running-down-cheeks, hysterically funny May 19, 2006
Exotikat
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I too read this book in my childhood as a compulsory exercise in English class. Years later when I reread it out loud to my children, and was reduced over and over, frequently on the same page, to helpless, tearful laughter, I wondered how we managed to get through it in school. The book is an autobiographical rendering of the author's boyhood experience as his family of five travels from dreary, cold England to the sunny, whimsical reality of Corfu. The pristine island and colourful inhabitants embrace the family and all its idiosyncrasies. Gerry, the little boy, lives a blissful, completely free existence as he explores the flora and fauna of the island with the occasional French lesson thrown in as a silly gesture to seriousness. The day-to-day experiences of the whole family rush with sparkling hilarity through the pages, leaving the reader gasping for air from laughing too hard. This is a completely delicious book, the kind of book you want in your library forever. I have misplaced or lost several copies, and I've just ordered my latest. I think it is just about my favorite novel of all.
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