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Fresh off the euphoria of the Corfu trilogy I quickly put in a NetGalley request for the book that sparked my interest from Helen's review: Three Singles to Adventure. The name alone is captivating and full of promise. To say my expectations bar was set high is an understatement.

Alas, was it my high expectations or are the Gerry Durrell books from his adulthood just missing the spark of childhood wonder? I found myself yearning for that undefined something that was missing in this book and so abundant in the Corfu trilogy.

The stories were funny, but few were hilarious. I found myself missing Gerry's family, such vibrant characters in the Corfu trilogy and sadly absent in this adventure. The cast of characters we meet here were fine, but somewhat undefined, especially in contrast to the vivid Larry, Leslie, Margo, and Mother.

Still fun, still nice, still an enjoyable and quick read. But, just not the Corfu trilogy.
3.5 stars out of 5 stars

This book was just hilarious. It's like a cross between David Attenborough and Steven Colbert. Gerald Durrell and his hapless friends go on a trek through the rain forest to bring back exotic and endangered animals for zoo conservation, but things never, ever go as planned. For one thing, sloths should not be kept in a flimsy cage. For another, currasows like to sleep on your feet. It kept me laughing the whole time I read it.

The British naturalist Gerald Durrell is probably best known for his trilogy about his childhood in Corfu (which begins with My Family and Other Animals), but he also wrote a large number of other books, many of them describing his journeys to faraway countries to bring back animals for Britain’s zoos. Thanks to Open Road Media, who are reissuing his books in ebook form, I have had the opportunity to read two of them: Three Singles to Adventure and Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons.

First published in 1954, Three Singles to Adventure is an account of Durrell’s animal-collecting expedition to British Guiana (now Guyana) in 1950. Using the capital city of Georgetown as a base, Durrell and his two companions, Bob and Ivan, begin their mission by purchasing three tickets to Adventure, a village chosen at random from a map because of its intriguing name. First in Adventure, then in two other locations elsewhere in the country, the three begin to gather specimens of the mammals and birds, reptiles and amphibians, which live in that area of South America. These range from lizards, frogs and anteaters to anacondas, opossums and tree porcupines.

Durrell’s enthusiasm for his work really shines through on every page. His descriptions of the animals and birds he discovers are vivid and detailed, full of wonder, fascination and admiration; he even manages to capture the individual personality of each one. My personal favourites were the two-toed sloth who tries to escape in the middle of the night, the capybara who keeps everyone awake by gnawing on the wires of his cage and a big, lovable curassow bird called Cuthbert who gets under everybody’s feet at the most inconvenient of times!

As an animal lover myself, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for some of the animals, who clearly weren’t meant to be kept in captivity and were transported in sacks, boxes and cages, but having said that, I could see that Durrell did genuinely care about them and treated them in as humane a manner as he was able given the time and place. He would later become known as a conservationist, founding the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust with his own zoo in Jersey dedicated to helping endangered species.

The first thing that an animal lover may want to know before reading about adventures of an animal collector is that Gerald Durrell was a dedicated conservationist. The tales in this book are from 1950 when the culture was very different, but Durrell seems a bit ahead of his time. It is clear from his writing that he’s fascinated by the animals and was dedicated to the study of animals for the sake of education and to help all species thrive. These are the tales of his adventures as he collects specimens for zoos. At times the stories are self-deprecating, at times you may feel sorry for the poor confused animals, but he speaks with wonderment, not cruelty or superiority. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that he seems to regard some of his guides and assistants in South America with more inferiority than he has shown toward the animals. He clearly has great respect for the animals and that was important for me to enjoy this book. The photos and description of the author and his life’s work at the end of this book help to calm my concerns about exploitation of the animals, as his mission was to breed and study endangered species, rather than seeing a zoo as a commercial venture.

I really enjoyed reading this on a tablet where I could highlight the name of an animal and instantly bring up a photograph that did not always match what my imagination created from the description. The only problem with this reading method is that it took me longer to finish the book because I was often sidetracked by photos and entertaining videos of the animals as I discovered them. I’m not complaining, the entertainment was well worth the time.

I would like to thank Open Road Integrated Media – not only for granting my request to read an advance copy of this ebook, but for constantly releasing so many great backlisted titles into ebook format. There are so many great books that don’t get the attention they deserve. I appreciate the new ebook releases that have helped me discovered some of the old, buried treasures of the literary world.

Between his unconventional upbringing on Corfu (immortalized in books and TV series) and his celebrated career as the founder of the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust, Gerald Durrell was a wildlife collector.

In the days before almost all zoo animals were bred in captivity, collectors roamed the wild, getting animals of all kinds for zoos. It was an almost perfect job for someone as crazy about animals and adventurous as Durrell.

This book, newly released as an ebook, is as delightful an introduction to Durrell's writing as I can imagine. It covers a collecting trip to Guiana in South America in 1950. Durrell, his guide, and another Brit, collected animals in four locations around the country,

The book not only tells of their adventures, it gives us pictures of many of the animals and of the country and its people. The author is a wonderful raconteur and his stories are hilarious. You can just picture the absurd events from his descriptions. These he blends with portraits of the animals. Often they emerge as characters in their own right, but equally often, we get basic information about the beastie given in a way that is full of information but not off-putting or overly technical. I've been reading his books since the 1970's and this is. I think, one of his greatest gifts as a writer. You learn so much about creatures you may never have heard of, but in a way that is so fun.

They collect in the capital city, in the jungle, in the plains (savannah), and in an area interlaced with creeks. In each location he gives lovely, almost poetic, word pictures of the land. It's another aspect of his writing that is unusual. Instead of the environmental hand-wringing and brow-beating we find so often today, we see the land through the eyes of someone who loves and respects it while never losing the sense of wonder at its variety and beauty.

It makes for a lovely mental vacation and a great book.

Another great book by Gerald Durrell! He had such a passion for animals. I love reading about his adventurous travels. The interaction with some of the animals is hilarious. The biography and pictures at the end are an added bonus.

5*****

It's been a long time since I read any of Gerald Durrell's later books, though I've read "My Family and Other Animals" fairly recently, and I'd forgotten how wonderfully descriptive they are. Animals, people and scenery all spring to life, engaging all your senses, even while you're snorting at the local names and apparent caricatures. It's not all fun and games, of course, and he does touch on some of the more serious aspects, but prefers not to dwell on those.

(Speaking of local names, anyone who's emigrated will be familiar with the hoops one must jump through to find out what everyone else calls this thing you're holding/looking at/looking for.)

But back to the book... Here Gerry is in Guiana, in 1950, searching for specific animals to bring back for zoos. As he explains, a collector's life is never dull even though there may be lots of waiting, and there were multiple scenes I felt obliged to read out loud, resulting in additional laughter from the audience, everything from unorthodox catching methods (and the lengths to which they must go!) with the assistance of artist-at-a-loose-end-Bob to improvised animal cages. Variants on "How did X get out" provide entertainment as well as a familiar refrain, but the real stars are the animals themselves.

Whether sloth, opossum, tree porcupine or curassow, their antics are described vividly and with that terribly British dry, understated humor that just makes it so much more entertaining. People aren't exempt either, and the colorful local guides are almost unimaginable. Seriously, you couldn't make this up.

I can't remember if these were present in earlier editions, but at the end there is a useful index of animal names, along with some annotated photographs of Gerry and some recognizable characters (human and animal), which really help anchor the book to a real person. In all, this isn't quite as funny as "My Family and Other Animals" but I suspect it also has a firmer grounding in reality.

Durrell set out to British Guina in 1950 to obtain animals for zoos in Great Britain. He, and his fellow travelers, had what seemed like countless adventures in doing so. Durrell excels in describing the animals he was after, and in setting the scenes where they were found. Also the safekeeping and care of the animals he obtained. His exploits, no matter how dangerous, were written with a great humor. When you read the saga of poor Cuthbert, you cannot help but laugh.
This is an easy read, and moves along quickly. The only reservation that I have, and you really do have to discount it when you consider the era it was written in, is the somewhat assumed racial superiority of the author. Even with that being taken into account, it would be a great book for younger readers.

Back in 1950, Durrell set out on a species saving expedition to South America. His idea was to track down endangered wildlife and bring living specimens back to the UK to procreate there in his sanctuary. Like most of Durrell’s books, this is full of adventure, with rainforest jaunts and encounters with man-eating fish, sloths and an anteater not exactly eager to go back to Britain with the author