this review is for the audiobook edition.

have you watched the durrells? they are a wacky delight! the BBC production is excellently cast, and it does a very good job of making you want to move to corfu and take up with the family.

but i had not read anything from any of the writerly durrells prior to watching the series. so i started here. while it's fine, of course the audiobook is a different beast. while the narration was okay, it got a bit chaotic at times - certainly that energy was representative of the stories being shared in this first instalment. it got a bit grating after a time. the personalities seem to have been softened for the TV series, though the underlying essence of gerald's family members were maintained. it would be very cool if the TV series cast recorded the audiobooks of gerald's memoirs. this is truly just my own inability to detach from the actors and their familiar voices, while listening to the different performers on the audiobook. ( )

Gerald Durrell tells the story of his first sojourn to Corfu with his family when he was 10 years old. He is a born naturalist and is never happier than when he is exploring and capturing specimens. His adventures with animals and nature, his family and the people on the island are hilarious. His language is beautiful and so descriptive. Loved it and will be reading more of his trilogy. ( )

It seems like a sweet enough book, but it's just not *grabbing* my attention. I may come back to it some other time, but for now, I'm putting it down. ( )

It probably helped that I watched the BBC show years before I read the book, so I was familiar with the characters and already loved them, but this book was very lighthearted, extremely funny, and had an appropriate amount of animal encounters and appreciation. The animals ranged from water snakes to mantises, although I felt that Gerry had been cruel a few times. However, his observations and specimens from Corfu from the ages of 10-15 were just the beginning. He later became a great naturalist with a conservation trust that survives today. I found that the dialogue was always pleasant to read, with the family’s squabbles being the best. The book certainly doesn’t help my desire to go to Greece. ( )

A fun and funny recounting of the time Gerald Durrell spent some of his childhood in Corfu, and the animal and human behavior he observed and comments on. It's all pretty good, but I would argue that chapters 10, 15 and 16 are the best. The bits when Gerry and his dog Roger are on an adventure are reliably good.
There are a fair number of quirky accessory characters, including Lugaretzia, the housekeeper, who always has an ailment to complain about: "Larry (Gerry's brother) suggested buying her a ball and chain. He pointed out that this would allow us time to escape, for Lugaretzia had developed the habit of creeping up behind one and groaning loudly and unexpectedly in one's ear. Larry started having breakfast in his bedroom after the morning when Lugaretzia took off her shoes in the dining room in order to show us exactly which toes were hurting."
And I was delighted to read Mrs. Kralefsky's (the mother of Gerry's tutor) view of aging: "They say that when you get old, your body slows down. I don't believe it. I have a theory that life slows down for you. Everything becomes languid, as it were, and you can notice so much more when things are in slow motion. The things you see! It is really a delightful adventure!" ( )