Birds, Beasts, and Relatives - by Gerald Durrell (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published in 1969 but long out of print, Durrell's dazzling sequel to "My Family and Other Animals" is based on his boyhood on the Greek Island of Corfu from 1935 to 1939 and filled with charming observations, amusing anecdotes, boyhood memories, and childlike wonder.

Book Synopsis

Volume two in Gerald Durrell's Corfu Trilogy, which was the inspiration for the Masterpiece PBS series The Durrells in Corfu.

Part coming-of-age autobiography and part nature guide, Gerald Durrell's dazzling sequel to My Family and Other Animals is based on his boyhood on Corfu, from 1933 to 1939. Originally published in 1969 but long out of print, Birds, Beasts, and Relatives is filled with charming observations, amusing anecdotes, boyhood memories, and childlike wonder.

Review Quotes

A delightful book full of simple, well-known things: cicadas in the olive groves, lamp fishing at night, the complexities of fish and animals?but, above all, childhood molded by these things and intimately recalled in middle age. ("The New York Times Book Review")

About the Author

Gerald Durrell was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter born in Jamshedpur, India, in 1925. A student of zoology, he founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust on the Channel Island of Jersey. He wrote many books about his life as an animal collector and enthusiast, the most famous being My Family and Other Animals, which was the inspiration for the Masterpiece PBS series The Durrells in Corfu. He passed away in 1995.