For most readers their gateway book to an unbreakable
Gerald Durrell (NYT obit) habit is My
Family and Other Animals, his memoir of growing up in Corfu between the wars with his
eccentric family and native wildlife.
He also wrote accounts of animal collecting in South America, A Zoo in My Luggage and its sequel The Whispering Land. Durrell's prose is fluent and humorous. He relates his rough journey through austere Patagonia (Argentina) but we also get a sense of his respect at the diversity of wildlife: observing colonies of penguins and elephant seals, hanging out with guanaco in the wild, saving an abused ocelot, using himself as bait for vampire bats (before recalling the risk of rabies), and saving a baby peccary named Juanita.
It's not totally about animals though because unforgettable is the stout Rosa Lillipampila, his seatmate on a small plane heading for Jujuy.
I highly recommend this marvelous book.
He also wrote accounts of animal collecting in South America, A Zoo in My Luggage and its sequel The Whispering Land. Durrell's prose is fluent and humorous. He relates his rough journey through austere Patagonia (Argentina) but we also get a sense of his respect at the diversity of wildlife: observing colonies of penguins and elephant seals, hanging out with guanaco in the wild, saving an abused ocelot, using himself as bait for vampire bats (before recalling the risk of rabies), and saving a baby peccary named Juanita.
It's not totally about animals though because unforgettable is the stout Rosa Lillipampila, his seatmate on a small plane heading for Jujuy.
I highly recommend this marvelous book.
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