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The complete trilogy that inspired Masterpiece production The Durrells in Corfu in one volume. The tales of a naturalist and his family, who left England for the Greek island of Corfu-where they interacted with fascinating locals of both human and animal varieties-these memoirs have become beloved bestsellers and inspired the delightful series that aired on PBS television. Included in this three-book collection are: My Family and Other Animals: Ten-year-old Gerald Durrell arrives on show more sun-drenched Corfu with this family and pursues his interest in natural history, making friends with the island's fauna-from toads and tortoises to scorpions and geckos-while reveling in the joyous chaos of growing up in an unconventional household. Birds, Beasts and Relatives: Written after a boyhood spent studying zoology, this memoir is part nature guide, part coming-of-age tale, and all charmingly funny memoir. The Garden of the Gods: In the conclusion of the trilogy, Durrell shares more tales of wild animals and his even wilder family, including his mother, Louisa, and his siblings Lawrence, Leslie, and Margo, in the years before World War II. show lessTags
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What a crazy, whacky family--but I love them. Mrs. Durrell is an overwhelmed widow doing her best to raise a family of colorful characters, and she does her best to balance all their eccentricities with the harshness of reality and everything that being a widow with four children entails. PBS now has a series called The Durrells on Corfu. The series is inspired by Gerry Durrell's family's adventures recounted in this and the other two books that makes up the Corfu trilogy. The tv series is good, but yeah, the book is better. This was a great read that made me laugh out loud and has me thinking that sometimes the best way to be happy is to learn to let go and just enjoy the ride life provides. Highly recommended!
Three books of the author's memories from the time in his childhood when he and his family spent 4 years in Corfu before the Second World War.
From this distance it sounds like an idyllic time as the budding naturalist goes off exploring the beautifully described local scenery and wildlife, for the most part by himself apart from his dogs and also once a week a local doctor, who was something of a polymath.
The books are also full of hilarious anecdotes involving his family (his mother, two brothers and one sister), their visitors, and the animals the author collected.
From this distance it sounds like an idyllic time as the budding naturalist goes off exploring the beautifully described local scenery and wildlife, for the most part by himself apart from his dogs and also once a week a local doctor, who was something of a polymath.
The books are also full of hilarious anecdotes involving his family (his mother, two brothers and one sister), their visitors, and the animals the author collected.
I have read and reread (several times) Gerald Durrell’s enchanting memoir My Family and Other Animals, and most of his other animal-collecting / Jersey Zoo tales but never until now the other two stories in the ‘Corfu Trilogy’, feeling, perhaps, that the first book could not really be outdone, and there was such a thing as too much of a good thing. The most immediate thing to happen, however, when I did finally pick up the amalgamated trilogy, was that it refreshed my appreciation for the first book, which I immediately went back and reread with renewed enthusiasm after reading the sequels.
Gerry’s family, the Greek cast of characters, and above all the tremendous influx of animals which young Gerry amasses, provides the author show more with more than enough material to fill three books without leaving the reader dissatisfied. I still feel that the charm and delight is stronger with the first book, but only because by the second we are thoroughly introduced and acquainted with the level of amiable chaos one can expect from any story involving the Durrells. If I had felt that perhaps the standard might be lower than the scorpions-in-the-matchbox scene which fixed My Family and Other Animals place as the best memoir I’d ever read, then I was proved wrong on more than one occasion (“How do you explain a bloody great bear in the drawing room?” – Larry Durrell, Birds, Beasts and Relatives). More to the point, Corfu doesn’t become over-described by Durrell’s revisited descriptions, but remains a bright, endlessly fascinating jewel of an island.
Is this a somewhat idealised view of a place and a life and group of people? Yes, absolutely. I think that’s why we love it; Durrell provides us with fact that is as endearing as fiction, perhaps overplayed sometimes, but nonetheless faithful to his childhood recollection. I think what I like most is that Durrell doesn’t apologise for his good fortune or his excellently eccentric family, doesn’t retroactively explain that attitudes to animal-collecting were different, or do anything but impart, with fondness and amusement, the highlights from the earliest days of his love-affair with animals which means that the reader is immersed in pure story, a memoir with no agenda but to entertain and enlighten. show less
Gerry’s family, the Greek cast of characters, and above all the tremendous influx of animals which young Gerry amasses, provides the author show more with more than enough material to fill three books without leaving the reader dissatisfied. I still feel that the charm and delight is stronger with the first book, but only because by the second we are thoroughly introduced and acquainted with the level of amiable chaos one can expect from any story involving the Durrells. If I had felt that perhaps the standard might be lower than the scorpions-in-the-matchbox scene which fixed My Family and Other Animals place as the best memoir I’d ever read, then I was proved wrong on more than one occasion (“How do you explain a bloody great bear in the drawing room?” – Larry Durrell, Birds, Beasts and Relatives). More to the point, Corfu doesn’t become over-described by Durrell’s revisited descriptions, but remains a bright, endlessly fascinating jewel of an island.
Is this a somewhat idealised view of a place and a life and group of people? Yes, absolutely. I think that’s why we love it; Durrell provides us with fact that is as endearing as fiction, perhaps overplayed sometimes, but nonetheless faithful to his childhood recollection. I think what I like most is that Durrell doesn’t apologise for his good fortune or his excellently eccentric family, doesn’t retroactively explain that attitudes to animal-collecting were different, or do anything but impart, with fondness and amusement, the highlights from the earliest days of his love-affair with animals which means that the reader is immersed in pure story, a memoir with no agenda but to entertain and enlighten. show less
I've re-read the entire trilogy so many times I've lost count. This is my go-to book when I'm blue because of the innocence and unadulterated joy that the author conveys with lyrical beauty on every splendid page. Can't rate this high enough. A
Taking advantage of the television version of the Durrell's life on Corfu, Penguin has reprinted the three volumes of memoirs in one volume. The chronology gets a bit confusing at times, but it doesn't really matter. Durrell's descriptions of the animals of the island and the surrounding sea and of the inhabitants, and of his novelist brother's eccentric friends are entrancing.
Gerald "Gerry" Malcolm Durrell was a British naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist, author and television presenter. This book contains three classic tales: “My Family and Other Animals”, “Birds Beasts and Relatives” and “The Garden of The Gods”. His mother moved with her three younger children (Leslie, Margaret and Gerald) to the Greek island of Corfu in 1935, joining her eldest son, Lawrence, who was living there with his wife. It was on Corfu that Durrell began to collect and keep the local fauna as pets. The family lived on Corfu until 1939. What is about this childhood memoir mostly on odd animals and island life so intriguing? It has to be the impossibility of us or our children having the chance of tasting natural, show more quiet childhood adventure... His curiosity of all living things and the hilarious events happening around the Durrell family pulls you into the Corfu island before WWII and keeps you in it until the very last of his words... show less
Contiene: Mi familia y otros animales ; Bichos y demás parientes ; El jardín de los dioses
May 11, 2025Spanish
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Gerald Durrell was born on January 7, 1925 in Jamshedpur, India to British parents. After the death of his father in 1928, the family lived in England and Europe before settling in Corfu, where he spent much of his childhood. Educated by private tutors, he became interested in natural history and amassed a private collection of dozens of creatures show more from scorpions to owls. He went on numerous wildlife expeditions and founded the Jersey Zoological Park and the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust with the purpose of breeding endangered species. His first book, The Overloaded Ark, was published in 1953. He wrote 37 books during his lifetime including My Family and Other Animals, The Bafut Beagles, A Zoo in My Luggage, Rosy Is My Relative, and The Mockery Bird. He received the Order of the British Empire in 1982 and was featured in the United Nations' Roll of Honor for Environmental Achievement in 1988. He died from complications related to a liver transplant on January 30, 1995 at the age of 70. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- The Corfu Trilogy
- Alternate titles
- Garden of the Gods also published separately as Fauna and Family
- Original publication date
- 2006
- Important places
- Corfu
- Related movies
- The Durrells in Corfu (2016 | IMDb)
- Quotations
- the water in the bay looked so still and transparent that it was hard to believe there was any at all. Fishes seemed to drift over the wave-wrinkled sand as though suspended in mid-air, while through six feet of clear water y... (show all)ou could see rocks on which anemones lifted frail, coloured arms, and hermit crabs moved, dragging their top-shaped homes.
Summer gaped upon the island like the mouth of a great oven. Even in the shade of the olive groves it was not cool and the incessant, penetrating cries of the cicadas seemed to swell and become more insistent with each hot, b... (show all)lue noon. The water in the ponds and ditches shrank and the mud at the edges became jigsawed, cracked and curled by the sun. The sea lay as breathless and still as a bale of silk, the shallow waters too warm to be refreshing. You had to row the boat out into deep water, you and your reflection the only moving things, and dive over the side to get cool. It was like diving into the sky. [opening paragraph of chapter 9, "The Talking Head," from Birds, Beasts, and Relatives]
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