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My Family And Other Animals
Gerald Durrell was born in Jamshedpur, India, in 1925. He returned to England in 1928 before settling on the island of Corfu with his family. In 1945 he joined the staff of Whipsnade Park as a student keeper, and in 1947 he led his first animal-collecting expedition to the Cameroons. He later undertook numerous further expeditions, visiting Paraguay, Argentina, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Mauritius, Assam and Madagascar. His first television programme, Two in the Bush¸ which documented his travels to New Zealand, Australia and Malaya was made in 1962; he went on to make seventy programmes about his trips around the world. In 1959 he founded the Jersey Zoological Park, and in 1964 he founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust. He was awarded the OBE in 1982. Encouraged to write about his life's work by his brother, Durrell published his first book, The Overloaded Ark, in 1953. It soon became a bestseller and he went on to write thirty-six other titles, including My Family and Other Animals, The Bafut Beagles, Encounters with Animals, The Drunken Forest, A Zoo in My Luggage, The Whispering Land, Menagerie Manor, The Amateur Naturalist and The Aye-Aye and I. Gerald Durrell died in 1995.
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Menagerie Manor
Most children at the tender age of six or so are generally full of the most impractical schemes for becoming policemen, firemen or engine drivers when they grow up...I knew exactly what I was going to do: I was going to have my own zoo. Menagerie Manor is the hugely entertaining account of how the well-known and much-loved conservationist and author, Gerald Durrell, fulfilled a lifelong ambition by founding his very own private zoo in Jersey. With the help of an enduring wife, a selfless staff and a reluctant bank manager, the zoo grows. One by one the reader is introduced to the village idiocy of Trumpy, the grey-winged trumpeter, who wakes the zoo every morning; the riotous antics of Claudius the tapir; the moving romance of N'Pongo, an African gorilla; and the antics of a whole menagerie of orangutans, lions, bears, porcupines and other creatures. Hilariously illustrated by Ralph Thompson, this book about the trials and wonders of living in the middle of a zoo is a classic that will continue to bring pleasure to those who grew up reading Durrell, and deserves a whole new readership.
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The Aye Aye And I
In the gloom, it came along the branches towards me, its round, hypnotic eyes blazing, its spoon-like ears turning to and fro independently like radar dishes, its white whiskers twitching and moving like sensors; its black hands, with their thin, attenuated fingers...tapping delicately on the branches as it moved along, like those of a pianist playing a complicated piece by Chopin...I had had my first encounter with an aye-aye and I decided that this was one of the most incredible creatures I had ever been privileged to meet...Madagascar, in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa, is one of the most fascinating islands in the world. The fourth largest island, it is home to five per cent of the world's plant and animal species, including giant jumping rats, flat-tailed tortoises and gentle lemurs. Ninety per cent of its flora and fauna are found nowhere else in the world. But when Gerald Durrell visited, creatures like the aye-aye were in danger of vanishing.Mostly due to 'slash and burn' agriculture, cutting down the forests which are the life-blood of the island, the aye-aye and many other unique creatures were threatened with extinction. Some had to be established in captivity to build up viable breeding colonies and maintain the species. Gerald Durrell decided to undertake a rescue mission to bring aye-ayes back to his breeding centre, now called the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, on the island of Jersey. This is the tale of his hunt for the aye-aye, and the adventures he had.