My Family and Other Animals

I've been reading Gerald Durrell. Or perhaps reading is not as accurate a description as the one I am seeking. I've been at turns, erupting with laughter and stewing with envy while feasting my eyes on what is clearly one of the best natural history-themed, very imaginatively-written, childhood memoirs I've had the good fortune to pick up.

My Family and Other Animals is the tale of 10-year-old Durrell who, with his highly eccentric family members, moves to the Greek island of Corfu and drinks in its natural history with a joyful abandon that makes me wish I could have been there with him, discovering the weirdest beetles, chocolate-candy-colored scorpions, and immunerable other magical living things, and being owner to delightful canines and even an owl with attitude.

Durrell's poetic words remind me that when the heart or health is not at ease, one should always turn back to the never-fail antidotes of childlike wonder and animal revelry. There's nothing like a story of mating tortoises to get one back in track, don't you think?

Here's the Wikipedia page on Durrell. Below are other Durrell lovelies on my list and another thanks to Becky for suggesting them.



And here's a dramatization (Masterpiece Theatre):