My Family and Other Animals - Penguin Clothbound Classics

Gerald Durrell's beloved classic memoir, now published as a beautiful Penguin Clothbound Classics edition

When My Family and Other Animals was published it was as if someone had flung back the curtains, thrown up the windows and let in a stream of bright light - Kathryn Hughes, Guardian

Gerald Durrell was magic - Sir David Attenborough

Living in Corfu was rather like living in one of the more flamboyant and slapstick comic operas
It is 1935 and the Durrells have escaped the leaden summer skies of Bournemouth to arrive like a troupe of medieval tumblers on the sun-drenched island of Corfu for a new life. Gerald Durrells beloved portrayal of his chaotic family beatific Mother, Roger the dog, diet-obsessed Margo, book-loving Lawrence and gun-wielding Leslie as well as his own adventures with a burgeoning menagerie of beasts, birds and insects (including an owl called Ulysses), is a timeless account of an idyllic childhood and an uproarious portrait of the English abroad.