My Family and Other Animals Gerald Durrell, 1956
![My Family & Other Animals [2005] [DVD]](durrell_my_family_dvd_bbc.jpg)
This lovely and wonderfully funny book describes from a child's eye view what it was like to grow up in Corfu (Greece) in the 1950s, surrounded by lizards, insects and of course the extraordinary Durrell family.
The superb BBC DVD starring Imelda Staunton as Durrell's long-suffering mother manages to capture the sunshine, craziness and magic of the book.
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Buy
the DVD from Amazon.co.uk
Tarka the Otter Henry Williamson, 1927
The original otter tale, and one of the most moving natural history books ever written, tells the story of an otter pursued by hunters - from the point of view of the otter.
Williamson took enormous care over the book, rewriting it many times to ensure it was precise and unsentimental. The effect is incomparable.
Ring of Bright Water
Gavin Maxwell, 1960
In this beautiful bestseller which made him famous, Maxwell tells the story of the otter, Mijbil, which he brought back from the marshes of Iraq. He lived a bohemian life on an island which he called Camusfearna (actually Sandaig) on the west coast of Scotland. The otter was of a new subspecies, Lutrogala perspicillata maxwelli or Maxwell's Otter.
Ring of Bright Water is an utterly different sort of book from Tarka the Otter, but equally enjoyable. There's a beautiful DVD as well.
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Buy the DVD from Amazon.com
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A Reed Shaken by the Wind
Gavin Maxwell, 1959
A Journey Through the Unexplored Marshlands of Iraq
This lovely true story describes Maxwell's journey through the now-destroyed land of the Marsh Arabs. This was in his day an immense reedbed with a multitude of narrow waterways, full of wild boar, fish, otters and people living a way of life barely changed for thousands of years. He travelled with Wilfred Thesiger, who gave him the otter of Ring of Bright Water.
The Voyage of the Beagle
Charles
Darwin, 1839
HMS Beagle on the Strait of Magellan
Darwin's first book established his fame, and proved that he could write a cracking tale of adventure and discovery. His descriptions are accurate but gripping - far from the dry emotionless account that you might imagine from a Victorian scientist. He is also amazingly modern: for instance he was scathing about the "reckless destruction" of the forest cover of the Cape Verde Islands.
The Marsh Arabs
Wilfred Thesiger, 1964
Thesiger describes his wonderfully fortunate time living with the Marsh Arabs (all the more poignant given Iraq's recent history). The people, the watery landscape, and a way of life extraordinarily close to nature are all brought vividly to life in Thesiger's words and magnificent photographs.
The Origin of Species
Charles
Darwin, 1859
Origin of Species is perhaps the most famous book of the 19th century, and it has been in print ever since. This is because it is both a very careful scientific treatise and an ingenious presentation of what Darwin rightly guessed was an intensely controversial conclusion. So he leads up to his theory very very gradually. Each little step - domestic dogs are immensely varied, but each breed is certainly a kind of dog, and interbreeding is possible - is stated so gently and with so much evidence that, you'd think, nobody could disagree.
Darwin's masterpiece remains an accessible and enjoyable book to dip into, and it gives an insight into the mind of a genius who was both a brilliant naturalist and lucky enough to be on the right ship at the perfect moment in history.
The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins, 1859
1st edition's cover has a painting by zoologist Desmond Morris.
It is a tall order and a feat rarely accomplished to make a book about a century-old theory into a bestseller, but Dawkins managed it with Selfish Gene. This, his first book, created almost as much of a sensation as Origin of Species, launching Dawkins into a career as full of media appearances as of scientific research. The surprise is how readable the book is. Dawkins is simple and lucid in style, and the most tricky bits of evolutionary theory come across as clean, tidy and intuitive.
30th Anniversary Edition from Amazon.com
30th Anniversary Edition
from Amazon.co.uk
Gorillas in the Mist
Dian Fossey, 1983
![Gorillas In The Mist [1988] [DVD]](sigourney_weaver_gorillas.jpg)
Dian Fossey tells the story of how she spent 13 years in the Virunga mountains of Rwanda, living near the mountain gorillas and learning about them. The gorillas are peaceful, but Rwanda was not. Fossey was murdered, and her gorillas have been hunted to the edge of extinction.
Fossey's story has been told in an exciting and well-made film and DVD starring Sigourney Weaver.
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Buy the DVD from Amazon.co.uk
In the Shadow of Man
Jane Goodall, 1971
Jane Goodall went into the rainforest of Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania to study chimpanzees. She had no PhD, not even a bachelor's degree. But she had determination and luck, discovering that humans are not the only tool-users on the planet. After winning the apes' confidence, she was able to observe them in many previously unseen behaviours, including using sticks to extract termites, and hunting monkeys for meat. Then she had to convince a sceptical scientific establishment. In the end they gave her a PhD, by the way.
In this wonderful book Goodall tells her own (now legendary) life-story,
as well as the tale of the tool-using chimpanzees.