Why am I passionate about this?
As a lifelong weirdo, I’m intrigued by nonstandard choices. When I was eleven, slightly precocious (and slightly obnoxious), I dropped out of school—with the support of my parents, and against the advice of everyone else. After a year of homeschooling, I started attending university. This was the first in a sequence of unusual decisions. Some worked out better than others! I continue to wonder what motivates a person to step off the well-trodden, well-lit path. When is conventional advice likely to lead to fulfillment, and when should it be modified or ignored outright? I love a story (like these five) where someone tries something completely different.
Norah's book list on taking on a new adventure
Why Norah loves this book
I remember a scene early in the book describing the ongoing competition for grapes that went on between the author’s long-suffering dog, Roger, and a pet tortoise called (naturally) Achilles.
How could you not laugh? Gerard Durrell writes loving and generous descriptions of all the animals in his life (including, as the title implies, his mother and three older siblings) during his family’s five-year sojourn in Corfu in the 1930s.
I was taken with the lack of pretense in his account—presumably characteristic of the ten-year-old boy he was at the time—and yet his delightful vignettes display a self-awareness full of humor. The entire book is both charming and hilarious.
14 authors picked My Family and Other Animals as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, and 12.
The inspiration behind ITV's hit family drama, The Durrells.
My Family and Other Animals is Gerald Durrell's hilarious account of five years in his childhood spent living with his family on the island of Corfu. With snakes, scorpions, toads, owls and geckos competing for space with one bookworm brother and another who's gun-mad, as well as an obsessive sister, young Gerald has an awful lot of natural history to observe. This richly detailed, informative and riotously funny memoir of eccentric family life is a twentieth-century classic.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics…
