Encounters with Animals by Gerald Durrell
Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment.
MY BOOK BEGINNING
I am constantly being surprised by the number of people, in different parts of the world, who seem to be quite oblivious to the animal life around them.
-- from Encounters with Animals by Gerald Durrell.
I only recently discovered Gerald Durrell's animal books. I've read several novels written by his brother Lawrence Durrell, but it was only when I watched the wonderful Durrell's of Corfu that I learned about Gerald and his lifelong love of animals. So far, I've only read one of his books, Menagerie Manor, about starting a private zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey. But I have several others on my TBR shelf, including this one.
YOUR BOOK BEGINNING
Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.
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I sat on that sandbank for two hours, watching these great roly-poly creatures churning up the water and sand as they duelled in the shallows. As far as I could see, the old male was getting the worst of it, and I felt sorry for him.
Gerald Durrell's accounts of the animals he encountered on his travels were some of the first widely shared descriptions of the world's most extraordinary animals. Moving from the West Coast of Africa to the northern tip of South America - and elsewhere - Durrell observes the courtships, wars and characters of a variety of creatures, from birds of paradise, to ants and anteaters, among others.
