Three Singles to Adventure by Gerald Durrell

 

First Line: The following book is an account of a trip I made to British Guiana during 1950 with my partner, Kenneth Smith.

 

In 1950, Gerald Durrell set off for British Guiana (now Guyana) to collect native wildlife and bring it back to his Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust and other zoos. It was a journey filled with adventures of all sorts of landscapes and wildlife. Monkeys, sloths, piranhas, ill-tempered anacondas, and an anteater determined to escape-- Durrell experienced them all and more.

 

~

 

Being in need of an exotic locale and unfamiliar wildlife, I turned to one of the best sources for both: Gerald Durrell. When starting out on their adventures in Guyana, Durrell and his partners discovered that there was a place named Adventure, and none of them could resist: they went to the train station and asked for Three Singles to Adventure.

When reading Durrell's memoirs about his travels collecting wildlife, readers get a good idea of how to collect, care for, and transport animals to zoos. Once an animal is captured, the work has only just begun for these people. But this is probably the weakest of the reasons to read this and others of Durrell's memoirs. What sticks with me most are his anecdotes. How charming and lovable tree porcupines are. How an overly affectionate bird named Cuthbert loved to lay across everyone's feet. 

Durrell can also have readers laughing when he tells us "...how difficult it is to explain to a policeman why you are carrying a capybara through the streets at one o'clock in the morning." I wouldn't want to explain that either. But where this man can have me absolutely enthralled is when I read his descriptions of the landscape. In Guyana, I was with him in the canoe as it swept beneath orchid-decorated trees and eased through carpets of water lilies while the air vibrated with gold, blue, green, scarlet, and bronze dragonflies. I also found myself with a teary eye and a smile on my face as he described a group of dirty, tattooed, tough-as-old-boots merchant seamen who would make daily trips to the hold to watch the birth and development of tadpoles.

I greatly enjoyed my time with Durrell in Guyana, and I'm already wondering where he and I will be going next.

Three Singles to Adventure by Gerald Durrell

eISBN: 9781504042857

Open Road Integrated Media © 2017

Originally published 1954.

eBook, 177 pages

Memoirs

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

The Answer Is...Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek

First Line: Of all the projects in my professional career, I am starting off on this one with the most serious misgivings.

 

I'd been undecided on reading this book even though Alex Trebek has been a treasured part of my life for decades. Would I find it too sad? I can still have tears well in my eyes at the dedication to Trebek at the end of each Jeopardy! episode. A fellow reader assured me that it wasn't sad, and-- as a result of my adventures with a new format-- when I learned that both Ken Jennings and Alex himself narrated the audiobook, that was enough for me. I'd get the treat of listening to Alex tell me about his life. (For his voice was one of the most special things about him to me.)

 

The fellow reader was right; The Answer Is... isn't sad. And I learned a lot about Trebek as a man, a son, a husband, a father, a philanthropist. I was astonished to learn that we had several things in common, one of them being that our mothers were both sent to a tuberculosis sanatarium. 

 

The Answer Is... is illuminating, comforting, and uplifting. Even readers who haven't been fans of this very special man can enjoy this book... and I hope they do.

The Answer Is...Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek

Narrated by Alex Trebek and Ken Jennings.

ASIN: B086WMN47P

Simon & Schuster Audio © 2020

Audiobook. 4 hours, 35 minutes.

 

Memoirs

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Audible.

The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure

Title: The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie
Author: Wendy McClure
ISBN: 9781594487804
Publisher: Riverhead, 2011
Hardcover, 352 pages
Genre: Memoirs
Rating: B+
Source: LibraryThing Early Reviewer program

First Line: I was born in 1867 in a log cabin in Wisconsin and maybe you were, too.

Thus begins Wendy McClure's memoir of her attempt to relive her obsession with a series of children's books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. As a child, she loved the Little House books and dreamed of showing Laura the modern world. As an adult, she begins researching online, obtaining books written about the author and her family, and making pilgrimages to many of the Little House sites. Having missed the television series starring Michael Landon as a child, she watches all the episodes and finds other films based on the much-loved books.

McClure has a witty turn of phrase, as when describing Laura's arch enemy Nellie Oleson (who was actually a composite of three people) as "some kind of blond Frankenstein assembled from assorted bitch parts," and her list of things she learned from buying a dash churn on eBay is laugh-out-loud funny. She didn't stop with learning how to churn butter; she also bought an antique coffee grinder, ground seed wheat, and made bread just like Laura and her family did in The Long Winter. Throughout it all, she had the support of her husband, Chris, and that makes him a pretty special guy.

It's not necessary to be a Little House fan to enjoy this book, which is by turns thoughtful and funny. The book has a lot to say about how we react to momentous events in our lives as well as the power of obsession. However, as an older fan who read all the Little House books in hardcover and imagined herself in Laura's world, I think The Wilder Life will have special meaning for fans. As I turned the pages of McClure's books, I found myself remembering my own Little House days and what an impact those books had on my own life.

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Cobwebs and Cream Teas by Mary Mackie

Title: Cobwebs and Cream Teas: A Year in the Life of a National Trust House
Author: Mary Mackie
ISBN: 9780752834108
Publisher: Orion Publishing, 2001
Paperback, 175 pages
Genre: Memoirs
Rating: B
Source: Purchased from Alibris.

First Line: Remembering our first encounter with Felbrigg Hall, I'm irresistibly reminded of all the horror movies I've ever seen.

Author Mary Mackie's husband feared being tied to a desk for the rest of his working life; their children had "grown and flown"; and as a freelance writer, Mary's work could be done anywhere. When the position of Houseman at Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk, England became available, Mr. Mackie applied and was given the job. This slender volume recounts a part of their lives spent in this National Trust house.

I spent an enjoyable hour or two reading of the library in the house, the things the couple discovered while they worked there, and just the daily tasks that are expected of a Houseman (one of which involves walking fifteen miles on a slow afternoon-- without ever leaving the Hall).

Mackie has a light touch and a good sense of humor which combines well with the information she packs in this book. She continues her memoirs of life in this stately home in an additional two volumes-- Dry Rot and Daffodils and Frogspawn and Floor Polish-- and I look forward to reading both of these as well because I cannot resist sampling the histories of old houses, large and small.

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Castles in the Air by Judy Corbett

Title: Castles in the Air, The Restoration Adventures of Two Young Optimists and a Crumbling Old Mansion
Author: Judy Corbett
ISBN: 9780091897314, Ebury Press, 2005
Genre: Memoirs
Rating: A

First Line: I have just had to dry the sheets with a hair drier again before getting back into bed.

Judy Corbett and her husband-to-be Peter Welford wanted very much to find an old ruin of a house to restore so they could move out of the rat race of city life. They found their dream ruin tucked away in the foothills of the Snowdonian Mountains in Wales, but they had no real idea the challenges they were agreeing to take on when they signed all that paperwork.

Gwydir Castle was Judy Corbett's favorite type of dwelling: as each successive generation of owners wanted to "smarten up" the place, they just slapped an addition in the current style on one end or the other instead of making the entire building look homogeneous. Parts of Gwydir dated back to the dissolution of the monasteries. When Judy and Peter found it, some of the rooms had been turned into a noisome sort of pub.

As I read Judy's account of the restoration, I swore it must have never stopped raining the entire time:

When it's very dark in the castle and the batteries have run out in the torch [flashlight] and I can't find a dry match to light a candle, the symphony of drips guides me through the rooms. I have learnt to distinguish a coal scuttle from a paint pot and know exactly where I am by the tone of the drip.

Book bloggers from around the world would not be able to fault Corbett on her criteria for her future home: 'The yardstick by which I measured the suitability of any potential house was whether I could imagine myself reading in it."

Naturally the course of restoration did not run smooth, even with the help of workmen with interesting names like "the Scouse git" and the approval of a resident spirit or two. The sheer amount of work and discomfort that those two endured while restoring Gwydir Castle is jaw-dropping. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever undertake anything remotely resembling this gargantuan restoration project, but Corbett loved every minute of it, and her joy and feeling of accomplishment are plain as each small bit is completed.

If you love reading about old houses being brought back to life by people who love what they're doing and have a true sense of adventure, you will love reading Castles in the Air. Corbett not only has a knack for restoration, she's a deft storyteller as well.

[Source: Christmas gift from my husband.]

REVIEW: We Bought a Zoo

Title: We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Animals That Change Their Lives Forever
Author: Benjamin Mee
ISBN: 9781602860483/ Weinstein Books, 2008
Non-Fiction, Memoirs
Rating: C

First Line: Mum and I arrived as the new owners of Dartmoor Wildlife Park in Devon for the first time at around six o'clock on the evening of 20 October 2006, and stepped out of the car to the sound of wolves howling in the misty darkness.

Benjamin Mee, his sisters, brothers and widowed mother set out to do something few other people would attempt: to buy and to run a zoo. Dartmoor Wildlife Park was run-down and had had some legal problems due to the care of some of the animals, and it would take a Herculean effort for anyone to get it back up to standard. Knowing all this, the Mees were undaunted and went ahead with the sale, working on the necessary improvements with a shoestring budget while waiting for months for the bank to cough up the promised money. In the midst of all this, Mee had to move his family from the south of France to Devon in England, get two small children settled, and deal with a terminally ill wife. Nothing came easily.

This is a book I should have loved, but I didn't. Mee is a very wordy writer, and my mind kept losing focus in the middle of one long paragraph after another. Even his stories about the animals in the zoo began to look alike after a while; there seemed to be no real variety in them. I came away from the book with admiration for what he and his family have done. I just wish I'd enjoyed the journey more.

REVIEW: Wesley the Owl

Title: Wesley the Owl, The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl
Author: Stacey O'Brien
ISBN: 9781416551737/ Free Press
Genre: Memoirs, Nature
Rating: A+

First Line: On a rainy Valentine's Day morning in 1985, I fell in love with a four-day-old barn owl.

The subsequent 225 pages are an account of that love affair, which spanned nineteen years. Wesley's wing had suffered nerve damage, and he could never be released into the wild. Stacey knew that, when she agreed to care for the small helpless fledgling, the commitment would last years. She didn't realize the impact one bird would have on her life.

The knowledge O'Brien shares about owls is fascinating. They truly are unlike any other bird. Wesley imprinted on Stacey from the beginning, and the tales of their learning experiences together make the pages turn. The photographs included add a great deal to the story as well. O'Brien knows, as I do, that animals are sentient beings. They have intelligence, and they have emotions. Just because their intelligence and emotions may differ from ours does not mean that they do not exist. Many of the episodes shared are laugh-out-loud funny, but I do want to include a warning. If you cried at the ending of "Old Yeller", if you have pets that you are passionately attached to, have a box of Kleenex on hand before you read chapter sixteen. I didn't and had to go hunt for some.

Although the ending is sad, what remains behind is a feeling of awe and of joy that these two found each other, shared so much with each other, helped each other, and loved each other through two decades. How many human relationships can say the same? If you're a reader who loves wildlife, who's interested in animal behavior, who loves a book that can make you laugh and make you cry, Wesley the Owl is the book for you.

REVIEW: American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon

Title: American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon
Author: Steven Rinella
ISBN: 9780385521680/Spiegel & Grau
Memoirs, ARC
Rating: B

First Line: In the past week I've become something of a buffalo chip connoisseur.

When most people are asked to name the first visual image that comes to mind when someone says, "America", I would imagine that the bald eagle or the Statue of Liberty is at the top of many lists. They aren't my first choices. My first choice is the buffalo. When I was ten, my grandparents took my mother and me on a road trip across the country to Grass Valley, California. I will never forget coming over a rise outside of Cody, Wyoming, and seeing a herd of buffalo grazing out on the prairie. That has been one of the supreme Kodak Moments of my life.

Steven Rinella is also fascinated with buffalo. In 2005, he won a lottery to hunt for a wild buffalo in the Alaskan wilderness. One of only four hunters who succeeded in killing one, he found himself contemplating his place among 14,000 years' worth of North American buffalo hunters and the place of the buffalo in the American consciousness. The result is this book.

Not only is this book a memoir of that hunt, it is also filled with humor, anxiety, and fascinating facts about buffalo. From time to time, I found the transitions between buffalo lore and his hunt in Alaska to be a bit abrupt, but it didn't lessen my enjoyment of the book. I have to admit that I chose to read American Buffalo with a bit of trepidation: although I grew up hunting with my grandfather, the only type I do now is behind the lens of my camera. I wondered why, if Rinella is so fascinated with them, he would choose to kill one. It is a question that he raises himself in his book, and I appreciated the answer.

After reading American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon, not only do I know a lot more about the creatures that so catch my imagination, I also know more about the rigors of camping and hunting in the Alaskan wilderness. It's also reminded me that there's a herd of wild buffalo at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I really want to see them!