My Animals and Other Family

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Mother's dog. Dodo constantly challenges beauty standards. Affectionately called by Larry 'that canine Frankenstein'. I had spent most of my childhood thinking I was a dog, and I suspect I had aged in dog years. By the time I was ten I had discovered the pain of unbearable loss. I had felt joy and jealousy. Most important of all, I knew how to love and how to let myself be loved. All these things I learnt through animals. Horses and dogs were my family and my friends. This is their story as much as it is mine' I absolutely loved this. It's not very often I read an autobiography in nearly one sitting (I would have had I not have gone to bed!) but I didn't want to put this down. It's so brilliantly written, I love how each part of her life is told through an animal she's loved - I love that uniqueness of it.

The statue park in Miskolc Zoo, created a bust of Gerald Durrell in 1998. Whipsnade Zoo also unveiled a new island for housing primates dedicated to **Durrell in 1998.[14] Gerald Durrell is pure pleasure to read - the ideal medicine if you are stressed out or down in the dumps. Like P. G. Wodehouse, he is guaranteed to lift up your spirits. In 2006, the Jersey Arts Centre's Theatre in Education company produced the first stage version, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the book's publication in 1956. Adapted and directed by Daniel Austin, the play premiered on 22 February 2007 at Rouge Bouillon School in St Helier. [7] Similar titles [ edit ]Gerald Durrell just loved animals; any shape any size, big or small. The criterion was ‘just be an animal’. Days later, you find yourself in his dusty home, making piles of old pants for Goodwill, and in doing so, you discover a tall column of meticulously organized journals. What's this? First of all, Balding's take on the technical writing of a biography is completely unique. She devotes each chapter of the book to a different dog or horse present in her life until later adolescence. Whilst this device could be somewhat unusual to most readers, I feel it adds individuality and believability whilst giving true meaning to the book's title. I have always been a huge admirer and aficionado of Claire Balding, as she is my heroine in both the equestrian and sports world but in the journalism world too because of my combined love of horses and her career. From the perspective of an animal lover, horse rider and equestrian devotee this book was a must-have as soon as I noticed it in the bookshop, with its cover standing out on the bookshelf as something quite eye-catching. I have read many autobiographies about celebrities, horse riders and sports professionals but none of them are as spectacularly fantastic and as interesting as Claire Balding’s. She puts so much of her heart and soul into this insightful narrative that you feel very much a part of her world, and which I concider as a gift, a real treat for all fans of this highly renound and recognizable celebrity/ sports journalist and distinctive name in the horse world. It is the animals, the famous horses and top horse and rider combinations that make her such a universally loved figure in television, and that she speaks of so warmly and honestly in this delightful book that you are unable to put down.

Gradually the magic of the island settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen. Each day had a tranquility, a timelessness, about it, so that you wished it would never end. But then the dark skin of night would peel off and there would be a fresh day waiting for us, glossy and colourful as a child’s transfer and with the same tinge of unreality." Did I mention that I LOVED this experience? Well, there you have it. Brilliant. The reader became part of the family, of the picturesque island, of all the peasant neighbors and every single adventure by the lure of the prose. One of the best memoirs I have read in a very long time. Poking fun at himself, first and foremost, and then at his nuclear blood relations, as well as his adopted island 'family', just made this an adorable, wonderful, charming, delightful read. I read the 2004 edition. It's a lovely palette cleanser between the heavy literary fiction I've been reading, that is certain. It's an escape to not only another country and time, but also from reality. This story, while having a certain truth that comes with memoirs, has been distinctly sanitised. If this is to be believed, this family's biggest troubles are that one of their dogs' hips comes out of place from time to time, or that they've argued over the naming of a homemade boat, or that they had too many guests to comfortably accommodate. Hughes, David (1997). Himself & Other Animals: A Portrait of Gerald Durrell. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-180167-2. A side note to any fellow Brits who once strode majestically in platform shoes: the price on the book was a nostalgic three shillings and sixpence).

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Larry, the eldest brother (the famous author Lawrence Durrell), who is so puffed up with importance about his literary talents that he cannot avoid behaving like a pompous ass;

For a precocious child with a burgeoning interest in natural history, that time in Corfu was an exhilarating immersion in the richness nature had to offer. Gerry also had the benefit of being mentored by Dr. Theodore Stephanides, a Greek doctor, naturalist, poet, and author. Those years, I surmised, laid a firm foundation for Gerry’s pioneer work in zoo biology years later. He founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey in 1959. Mostly neurotic artists and writers. Invited spontaneously, in large amounts: 'Sometimes the fresh load of guests would turn up before we had got rid of the previous group, and the chaos was indescribable'. Without a shadow of a doubt, he was a formidable storyteller and his command of the English language would shame most of our modern-day scribblers. Not only this; his human imagery is up there with the best.George, Gerry's first tutor who converts each lesson into a zoological adventure to keep his pupil interested, and practices his fencing as his charge is wrestling with arithmetic; The Durrell School in Corfu, established in 2002, offers an academic course and tours in the footsteps of the Durrells in Corfu. Botanist David Bellamy has conducted field trips in Corfu for the school.