Books with author Gerald Durrell

When the 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 sun-soaked Greek island of Corfu. Through glorious silver-and-green olive groves and across brilliant tusk-white beaches, ten-year-old Gerry, the youngest of the four Durrell children, pursues his interest in natural history with a joyful passion, revealing the engrossing hidden world of the island's fauna. Many hilarious mishaps ensue as each of Gerry's new animal friends is installed in the family villa. Water snakes recuperate from heat stroke in the bathtub, matchboxes are filled with scorpions, and a pair of rowdy magpies make short order of everything from elaborate dinner spreads to Lawrence's prized manuscript to the patience of the family puppies, Widdle and Puke. Toads and tortoises, bats and butterflies, scorpions and geckos, ladybugs, praying mantises, octopuses, pigeons, and gulls are only some of the animals lovingly described in Durrell's classic tale of his childhood island home.

The follow up to My Family and Other Animals and the second book in The Corfu Trilogy, the beloved books that inspired ITV's television series The Durrells. Just before the Second World War the Durrell family decamped to the glorious, sun-soaked island of Corfu where the youngest of the four children, ten-year-old Gerald, discovered his passion for animals: toads and tortoises, bats and butterflies, scorpions and octopuses. Through glorious silver-green olive groves and across brilliant-white beaches Gerry pursued his obsession . . . causing hilarity and mayhem in his ever-tolerant family.

Soaked in the sunshine of Corfu, where Gerald Durrell lived as a boy with his "family and other animals," this book evocatively chronicles his five-year sojourn on the Greek island. With hilarious yet endearing portraits of his eccentric family and their many unusual hangers-on, My Family and Other Animals also captures the beginnings of Durrell's lifelong love of animals. In its passionate understanding of Corfu's natural history, this is an entertaining and enduring memoir.

The book is an autobiographical account of five years in the childhood of naturalist Gerald Durrell, age 10 at the start of the saga, of his family, pets and life during a sojourn on the island of Corfu. The book is divided into three sections, marking the three villas where the family lived on the island. Gerald is the youngest in a family consisting of their widowed mother, the eldest son Larry, the gun-mad Leslie, and diet-obsessed sister Margo together with Roger the dog. They are fiercely protected by their taxi-driver friend Spiro (Spiros "Americano" Halikiopoulos) and mentored by the polymath Dr. Theodore Stephanides who provides Gerald with his education in natural history. Other human characters, chiefly eccentric, include Gerald's private tutors, the artistic and literary visitors Larry invites to stay, and the local people who befriend the family. (from Wikipedia)

Great-uncle Lancelot is an extraordinary man with a huge white beard and a walrus moustache. When he builds a fantastic flying machine, powered by tree sap, lit by electric eels and heated by solar panels, his niece and nephews have never seen anything like it. Then, in search of his lost brother, Perceval, he whisks the children off in his flying home, to set out on an amazing journey around the world. Lancelot’s remarkable knowledge and the special powers he gives the children enable them to watch and talk to some incredible creatures. On their journey they discover all sorts of fascinating things about animals, such as how snakes move and how swallows migrate. Of course, they encounter many dangers along the way – in Africa the plucky explorers are caught in a sandstorm and Lancelot is chased by an angry rhino. And throughout their journey, one question remains. Will they ever find Perceval?