A voluptuous young mink

called Saranne

Said “I’ve thought of an excellent

plan

If we had a reversal

Of what’s universal

Then I could be wearing a man.”

Here is the measure of the man, the writer whose books enthralled, entertained and educated the world on the wonder of living things and the arrogance of humankind to their survival — and hence their own.

Those brought up on My Family and Other Animals will never forget who put the scorpions in the matchbox, the water snakes in the bath and why that “bloody boy”, “the most ignorant boy in the school”, loved animals more than anything.

Gerry’s story of the Durrell family’s five-year sojourn on Corfu that began in 1935 when he was 10 is one one of the best and most hilarious books you will read.

Gerry left England with “all those items that I thought necessary to relieve the tedium of a long journey: four books on natural history, a butterfly net, a dog, and a jam jar full of caterpillars all in imminent danger of turning into chrysalids”.

If you lent your copy to someone and never got it back, buy another and stage a family read-in. Let your kids in on the secret that there is more to life than electronic health and safety and that real insects and spiders play games of survival.

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• The 100 Best Books of the Decade
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• The conversation: James Ellroy