More anecdotal tales of Durrell's family time in Greece in the thirtys. Lots of interesting and humorous interactions with wildlife including, eels, beetles, a donkey, hedgehogs and a bear. Some of the descriptions of his family tend to be very caricaturish, however, he has great interactions with his tutors and the local people. Looking forward to the final volume. ( )

This book is interesting, highly amusing, humane, and just simply wonderful. While I was reading it, Peter Mayles' A Year In Provence came to mind. Not that they are in any way similar. It was because I distinctly remember being struck while reading Mayles' book how self-consciously humorous it was. Yes, it was funny, but I could feel how Mayles had worked to make it so.

Not so with Gerald Durrell. His humor is truthful and comes from the heart. There's no artifice and much of it is laugh-out-loud funny. His family is a riot and his stories have the simplicity of truth. I'm looking forward to finding and reading the third of the trilogy. ( )

Hilarious and moving. Exquisite descriptions of the island and it's flora and fauna.

Durrell revisits his childhood on Corfu – since clearly he forgot some of the best stories, according to his family. Full of beautiful and silly reminiscences of a different time, a different place. ( )

When I was eleven years old my grandmother gave me Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals for Christmas. I read it cover to cover before New Years and have reread it several times since. While My Family and Other Animals is very appropriate for an eleven year old Birds, Beasts and Relatives has somewhat more adult content. This is the second of a Corfu Trilogy. Gerald's adventures catching and collecting all kinds of wild creatures and the people he meets on the island of Corfu make for some very amusing tales. The author's older brother Lawrence Durrell lived with the family and brought many interesting and amusing friends to visit. Among the animals in this book are Gerald's donkey, Sara, three dogs, two owls, a toad and a bear that follows Gerry home and shocks the family at tea. A fun book. Just as amusing as the TV series or maybe more so. ( )

Much like the first book, this was a delight. GD writes beautifully about the natural world, and is hilarious and insightful about humans. Having visited Ionian Greece (Lefkada), these books are especially vivid and just make me desperately want to go back.

All that said, I'm a little bit horrified by the amount of meddling with wild animals done in the name of genuine intellectual pursuit. It's so antithetical to my "leave no trace" and "leave the animals the fuck alone" and "neuter your damn dogs" mentality about being out in nature, not to mention I imagine most of his menagerie would have preferred to go about their business undisturbed. I guess that's the price of human understanding of the world! ( )

Birds, Beasts, and Relatives is one of those books that keeps the party going. As the second book in the Corfu trilogy, Birds includes stories previously untold in My Family and Other Animals. While the Durrell family only spent four years on the Greek island of Corfu, Gerald was able to dig around in his memory and find always humorous and sometimes outrageous and obviously exaggerated situations to share, much to his family's chagrin. They usually involved young Gerald coming across some wild animal and insisting it become part of the family as an honorary pet (such as an owl, given to Gerald by an eccentric Countess). ( )

ok maybe dated. ( )

This is the second in trilogy of the Durrell’s on the Greek island of Corfu. Gypsies, winery, a bear. ( )

Gerald Durrell proves that he was no one-trick pony with this delightful follow-up to 'My Family and Other Animals' The gorgeous islands of Corfu are still untouched by modernity and the ravages of the war soon to come, and young Gerald spends his days exploring every inch of the terrain in search for new captures for his bedroom zoo. The detail is loving, the descriptions delightful, and yet as beautiful as the creatures all certainly are, it is the people who populate this book that make it so fantastically memorable. ( )

Delightful, funny, curious as always, Durrell had me laughing on page four... This book takes place more or less at the same time as My Family and Other Animals, overlapping without a lot of repeats. It tells those stories which were left out the first time around. Including: the time his sister got mixed up with a group of spiritualists (who held seances), the time he longed to buy a dancing bear off a gypsy, the time his older brother was taken to court by a Greek peasant who insisted that Gerry's dog had eaten five of his prize turkeys.It's full of interesting and colorful characters- both his family members, their friends, visitors, and acquaintances around the island- and many amusingly outrageous incidents. Sadly, I couldn't help reading between the lines this time around, having learned what Durrell never really spoke of in his books- that they fled England because the family was ruined by his mother's alcoholism, that the family was disliked by many on the island, considered scandalous for their behavior- and it's true that in the book Gerald frequently mentions them drinking- he must have been eight or nine years old at the time? yet he is given wine by his older brothers, champagne by an elderly woman he visits (to acquire an injured barn own) coffee by his tutor, etc. It sounds like a wonderfully carefree existence- him as a kid roaming the island, observing and collecting animals- yet I wonder if there wasn't a bit of neglect in there, too. One time he ran over to a neighbor's house and watched a young, newly married peasant woman giving birth- had a front-row seat and described it in detail, matter-of-factly. There's also the callously blunt way the family talks about his sister Margo's struggles with her weight and her skin condition. I'd be embarrassed if I were her.

Aside from all that, I did love the descriptions of the wildlife and other animals Durrell acquired or observed in nature. His family gave him a young donkey for his birthday, and it enabled him to explore more of the island. He met fishermen and older gentlemen also interested in nature, who took him out on the reef, or wading in the lake, to collect stuff. He describes crabs that camouflage themselves by sticking bits of seaweed (or whatever objects he gave them when corralled in a barren pool) on their shells, elvers migrating through a dry streambed to the lake, a diving bell spider (who ate her children), a pet owl and a family of young hedgehogs. Most wonderful was reading about the time he caught half a dozen small seahorses, and kept them for a brief time in an aquarium in his room. Durrell didn't have any kind of filter or means of water circulation as a kid. He tells of hauling buckets- going down to the beach to get fresh seawater for them- five times a day in order to keep the tank clean enough. I know what work it is enough to haul a few buckets down the hall to the nearest sink! No wonder he kept them just a brief time before letting them go in the sea again.

And that's just scratching the surface. There's so much more!

from the Dogear Diary ( )

Some funny stories, but this doesn't hold a candle to the first book. ( )

This second book of Gerald Durrell's Corfu trilogy isn't quite as good as the first one ("My Family and Other Animals"). However, if you like his style of writing this is worth reading. It has plenty of natural history, funny anecdotes and quirky personalities, making it a pleasant and quick read. ( )

This is the second volume of the author´s delightful Corfu trilogy.

I´ve presented an overview of some of the main characters in this trilogy in my review of the third volume, “The garden of the Gods”.

In the present book Margo, Mother and Gerald take a trip to the home country to seek treatment for Margo´s glandular condition, though Larry says it´s just puppy fat. In England Margo experiments with spiritualism and has a spirit guide called Mawake.

The family returns to Corfu, and we are introduced to Theodore, who is extremely erudite; he is a medical doctor, biologist, poet, author, etc, etc, but first and foremost, from the point of view of Gerry, an expert in natural history.

Theodore begins to visit the family every week and is loved by all; he is a walking encyclopedia.

Much of the book is devoted to Gerry´s naturalist observations, which are by no means dull, in fact quite absorbing, even for those of us with no predilection for natural history.

We meet Sven, who plays the accordion and is a homosexual but otherwise in no way resembles the slim, handsome Sven portrayed in the TV series “The Durrells”, he being an “enormous” man “with a facial resemblance to ---- Neanderthal Man”.

It is in this volume that we are given the story of Leslie`s court appearance for some unfortunate misdemeanours he has committed. The family´s friend Spiro helps Leslie out of a difficult situation by bribing the judge.

This is another delightful, side-splitting book on a par with the other two volumes of the trilogy, and I highly recommend that you read it. ( )

Remember when I reviewed Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals? Well, I was so impressed by it that I went ahead and requested the second in the trilogy (did I mention it was a memoir trilogy?) and it was a pretty good time. Birds, Beasts, and Relatives contains more anecdotal tales of the Durrell family when they lived in Corfu, Greece in the 1930s. I loved how it started with the family discussing the popularity of the first book and how embarrassed they were at how Gerald aka Gerry portrayed them all...and then he wrote a follow-up. #troll (Yes, I used a hashtag. Hashtags are hilarious.) The family dynamics highly amuse me as well as the antics that they all get up to as foreigners in a seemingly idyllic setting. (You saw the photo at the top of the post so you know I'm not lying.) I will warn you that because of the time period that this was written there are a few problematic moments such as the discussion of individuals of different skin colors and sexual orientations. If you can look at it through the lens of 'this was written back in the day' then you'll be fine as the mentions are sporadic and brief (and don't really make a huge impact on the story as a whole since each chapter can be read separately). If you're looking for a really quick story about a quirky family living somewhere that almost seems mythical then you can't go wrong with Birds, Beasts, and Relatives. ( )

Sequel to 'My Family and Other Animals'- more anecdotes from Gerald Durrell's idyllic childhood in Corfu, with - no doubt - significant poetic license. Amusing family conversations, bizarre friends who come and go, and an astounding collection of wildlife which Gerry collects. Slightly more detail in the natural history descriptions than I really like, but overall a very enjoyable book. ( )

In a way, the most poetic Durrell and saddest. SEL ( )

The follow-up to My Family and Other Beasts, and very much more of the same. More recollections of a nascent naturalist and collector and more humorous tales of the family in Corfu.
Read July 2014. ( )

As the author’s family feared, Gerald Durrell had many more stories of their life in Corfu to tell, and in Birds, Beasts and Relatives, the second of his Corfu Trilogy, he delivers a few of his favorites ones. As always this interesting clan with their varied interests, vague mother and Gerry’s assorted creatures makes for delightful reading.

Extremely entertaining, this short volume is chock full of stories that are both humorous and informative. Whether he is making discoveries of curious creatures like the strange spider crabs or dancing with Pavlo the bear, Gerry is living a childhood that we all wish could have been ours.

And with all of his humorous tales and vivid descriptions the beautiful sun-drenched island of Corfu comes alive. Gerald Durrell had a wonderful time in the years he spent there and his Corfu Trilogy lets us all in on his adventure. ( )

Some funny stories, but this doesn't hold a candle to the first book. ( )

Another very enjoyable instalment of Gerald Durrell's series of books about his childhood in Corfu. Great holiday reading. ( )

I didn't enjoy this quite as much as I did My Family and Other Animals. Perhaps with the earlier book it was the surprise of discovery. Nevertheless, the family continues on at Corfu in this volume of short essays, and young Gerald continues his fascination with the animals on the island. ( )

Non-stop humour and laughs. Any family would be flattered to be painted with such colours! ( )

Not quite as funny, or as well constructed as Other Animals, this is still a superb book, gentle humerous in Gerry's best style, full of creatures, people and life. Technically the 2nd book in the Corfu 'trilogy' of memoirs, it is almost certainly very readable on it's own, although the prior book 'My family and other animals' does introduce the family, the settings and some of the key other characters.

I'm not sure how old Gerry was when he wrote this, it features life from his childhood aged 10 or so, but contains some very well remembered conversations, which I assume must be approximations to the real events. Some event however sound likt he sort of thing that can never be forgotton!

It fairly quickly becomes apparent that onlike Other Animals, this is a more disordered selection of anecdotes, rather than a chronological recounting. However each incident is just as wonderfully described, whether it is the choas of being given a donkey for his birthday, the celebration of local birth, or just the investigation of the life cycle of water spiders.

Gerald had no favour when it came to creatures, bird or beast, insect or reptile from water fleas to giant turtles, every living thing was of interest. Maybe insects where easier to find, and mammels make better pets, and so claim most of the attention, but truly he was an all rounder.

The family also feature strongly in many ancedotes, especially where they get on the wrong side of one of Gerry's many pets - or the smell of the disected turtle! However they come thorugh with laughter and humour as a supportive companions. Maybe the most interesting insights are those brief glimpses of life amount the locals. Peasant families living an almost subsistance lifesty;e still managed to share good times and surplus when it was available.

Overal entertaining acounts of a young boy growing up surrounded by nature and an inquisitive mind, the like of which too few children have the opportunity to do today. ( )

Having read the first installment "My Family and other Animals" quite recently I was looking forward to reading more about the young Durrell and his hilariously eccentric family. Continuing the story of Gerry Durrells life on the island of Corfu` As with the first memoir Gerald Durrell demonstrates how his fascination - verging on obsession with all creatures began, and how it really is no surprise that he became the man that he did. His enthusiasm for even the most unappealing creatures is quite infectious. In this book we meet again the marvelous Spiro, a whole host of entertaining creatures including Sally the donkey, some tragic baby hedgehogs and a barn owl. We also meet Larry's friends Max and Donald a reclusive countess and the highly amusing but slightly repulsive Captain Creech. I must say I did frequently find myself laughing out loud at some of the antics of Gerry, his pets and various members of his highly entertaining family. These memoirs do make a childhood in the days before WW2 on the island of Corfu appear totally idyllic. I do have the third volume of this memoir, and I suspect it will not be all that long before I read that too. Admittedly this isn't quite as sparklingly wonderful as "My family and other Animals" but it is still fabulous and thoroughly enjoyable. ( )