At a glance
Pages272
First published1956
SettingCorfu, Greece, 1935–1939
Reading time~7h
AudienceAdult
ISBN0142004413
My Family and Other Animals
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for: Readers who love nature writing woven through with affectionate character comedy — particularly anyone drawn to sun-drenched memoir, eccentric family dynamics, or the natural history of the Mediterranean — will find this an ideal, unhurried read.
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My Family and Other Animals is Gerald Durrell's autobiographical memoir of the years the Durrell family spent on the Greek island of Corfu between 1935 and 1939, weaving sharp family comedy around a child naturalist's encyclopedic delight in island wildlife. The gold standard of warmly comic nature writing, it rewards readers who enjoy digressive, character-driven storytelling — but those seeking tightly plotted narrative or strict biographical accuracy should note that Durrell openly fictionalised events and omitted key figures such as Lawrence Durrell's first wife Nancy. The first volume in the Corfu Trilogy, it is a natural and self-contained entry point into Durrell's broader body of work.
- Is it worth reading?
- For readers who enjoy character-driven, digressive prose, My Family and Other Animals is considered a landmark of British autobiographical writing that has lost none of its appeal in nearly seven decades. The productive tension between sharp family comedy and sincere natural history is its defining achievement — a reader drawn by the comedy will find themselves genuinely educated in Corfu's island ecology, while a reader drawn by the natural history will find themselves laughing throughout. The key caveat is structural: the episodic format rewards unhurried readers, and those expecting a tightly plotted narrative or accurate biographical record may find the acknowledged fictionalisation and loose chronology frustrating.
- Similar books
- Readers who love My Family and Other Animals tend to enjoy other books that blend place, personality, and digressive warmth. Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence shares the same expat-in-Mediterranean-sunshine sensibility and comedy of cultural dislocation. Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island offers comparable good-humoured, character-rich travel writing with an eye for the absurd. Henry Beston's The Outermost House provides the natural-history strand taken in a quieter, more contemplative direction, while Ellen Barone's I Could Live Here: A Travel Memoir of Home and Belonging speaks to the same pull toward discovering belonging in an adopted place.
- Who should read this?
- My Family and Other Animals is ideally suited to readers who enjoy nature writing threaded through with character comedy — those who treat the natural world and human eccentricity as inseparable rather than competing subjects. Fans of the Masterpiece PBS series The Durrells in Corfu will find the book richly rewarding. Readers drawn to warm, episodic memoirs in the expat tradition — or those looking for an entry point into Durrell's broader body of work — will find it a natural fit. Those who prefer tightly plotted narratives or require strict biographical rigour are less likely to connect with its acknowledged looseness.
- What age is it for?
- My Family and Other Animals is broadly suitable for readers aged 10 and up, though it is most comfortably enjoyed by confident readers around 12 and above. The vocabulary and digressive, essay-like prose suit readers who are comfortable with unhurried, discursive writing rather than action-driven plotting. It is widely assigned in schools and has been a staple of younger readers for decades, making it one of the more accessible classic British memoirs for older children and young teens.
- About Gerald Durrell
- Gerald Malcolm Durrell was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. The success of My Family and Other Animals provided the financial foundation that allowed him to establish the Jersey Zoological Park, now known as the Durrell Wildlife Park, in the Channel Islands.
- Tell me about the adaptation
- My Family and Other Animals served as the inspiration for The Durrells in Corfu, a television series broadcast on Masterpiece PBS in the United States. The series introduced Durrell's Corfu years to a new generation of readers and viewers, and the book's cultural reach has continued to grow through this adaptation. The book also has a longer history of real-world impact — its popularity historically boosted tourism to Corfu itself.
- What are the main themes?
- The central tension of My Family and Other Animals is the interplay between comic family memoir and genuine natural history — Durrell balances his sharp, affectionate comedy at his family's expense against a sincere, encyclopedic enthusiasm for Corfu's wildlife, and neither strand overwhelms the other. Broader themes include the romance of displacement and belonging (an English family finding themselves at home on a Greek island), the formation of a naturalist's sensibility in childhood, and the relationship between memory and invention in autobiography — Durrell acknowledged fictionalising and shaping events for maximum warmth and comic effect.
Summarize this book
Is it worth reading?
Who should read this?
What age is it for?
About Gerald Durrell
Tell me about the adaptation
What are the main themes?
Summarize this book
My Family and Other Animals chronicles the years between 1935 and 1939 when the widowed Durrell family — mother, eldest brother Larry (the future novelist Lawrence Durrell), gun-obsessed Leslie, diet-fixated Margo, and youngest child Gerald — uprooted themselves from damp England to the sun-soaked Greek island of Corfu. Gerald, then ten years old, uses three successive family villas as loose structural anchors for a procession of episodes combining comic family observation with richly detailed natural history — toads, scorpions, geckoes, octopuses, bats, and butterflies all pass through the pages alongside colourful human figures such as the fiercely loyal taxi driver Spiro 'Americano' Hakiaopulos and the polymathic Dr. Theodore Stephanides, who becomes Gerald's mentor in natural history. Originally conceived as a natural history of Corfu, the book became equally a family portrait, and Durrell acknowledged it fictionalises and exaggerates throughout.
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Age & Reading Level
Recommended age
Adult
Reading level
Adult
Skip if you want a tightly plotted narrative or an accurate, documentary biographical account of the Durrell family's Corfu years.
Editorial Review
First published in 1956, My Family and Other Animals is Gerald Durrell's autobiographical account of the years he spent as a child on the Greek island of Corfu with his gloriously dysfunctional family — and it remains the gold standard of warmly comic nature writing, opening the first book of what became the beloved Corfu Trilogy.
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