We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Change Their Lives Forever

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We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Change Their Lives Forever

3.39 of 5 stars 3.39 · rating details · 2,811 ratings · 568 reviews

In the tradition of "Marley & Me" comes an unforgettable memoir about the mysteries of the animal kingdom, the power of family, and the triumph of hope over tragedy in this chronicle of the Mee family's purchase of the Dartmoor Wildlife Park, a dilapidated zoo in the English countryside.Weinstein Books

Hardcover, 261 pages

Published September 9th 2008 by Weinstein Books (first published 2008)

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Jan 19, 2012 K.D. Oliveros rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoirs, family-drama, with-movie

My work in the office is to be in front of the computer for almost the whole day. I’m an information technology-systems analyst guy assigned on North American projects so I rarely talk to anybody except during lunch time. Due to this, I can don a headset and listen to a radio station. 8 hours a day.

Since early this January, my favorite afternoon station, RJ 100.30 has been airing the teaser for the movie adaptation of this memoir We Bought a Zoo with one line that goes something like: ”You don’...more My work in the office is to be in front of the computer for almost the whole day. I’m an information technology-systems analyst guy assigned on North American projects so I rarely talk to anybody except during lunch time. Due to this, I can don a headset and listen to a radio station. 8 hours a day.

Since early this January, my favorite afternoon station, RJ 100.30 has been airing the teaser for the movie adaptation of this memoir We Bought a Zoo with one line that goes something like: ”You don’t need a lot of knowledge to run a zoo. What you need is a lot of heart.” The voice sounds sincere and the irony (who would thought of buying a zoo and declare it as if what you bought was just a new set of plasma TV?) is just intriguing. Then one evening, I saw a poster on top of a waiting shed along EDSA and when I saw Scarlett Johansson (my well-kept secret crush) and Matt Damon (who to my disappointment lost the lead role in the latest The Bourne movie that is currently shooting here in Manila), I said whoa this seems to be a fun movie. Then the following day, I saw a copy of this book at NBS with exactly the same people on the poster along EDSA, so I bought it right away forgetting my new year’s resolution of not buying books, especially brand new books because they are expensive and they derail my monthly budget. But anyway, I resolved that I would not see the movie anyway so the cost of the book approximates the savings from not seeing the movie with my family.

I liked the book particularly that fact that this was based on a true story. It was hard for me to bring my own experiences that would have made this a memorable read. My childhood experiences in zoos were not that really beautiful. The Manila Zoo was the first zoo I visited, once when I was a small boy and I was so young I could not remember anything about it. All I remember now was the stinking smell and the big scary elephant. I also remember that I wanted to eat another ice cream but my mother would not allow me to have another cone. My wife had a somewhat strange memory about her visit: she fell on the pavement and all she remembered when I asked her was that she was crying endlessly because of the pain. When my daughter was young, we bought her to the same zoo, Malabon Zoo and the ones in Tagaytay. She also had the chance to visit Ocean Park (in Hongkong), Singapore Zoo and Zoobic (in Olongapo City) and I know she enjoyed those. It’s always nice to give somethings to your children especially those that you were not able to have when you were young, right?

There is nothing really wrong about the writing. Mee tried to capture everything that happened in an organized manner. Not sure if he exerted effort to make the telling interesting but I just did not feel anything while reading. Okay, he bought the zoo for his mother as he would like her to have something to excite her now becoming boring twilight years. Okay, he was losing his wife, Katherine, to cancer and he probably thought that this would be a diversion of his grief. Okay, his two kids were all excited to own the 200 animals in the zoo and their father seemed like a God-sent hero to save those animals. Sure Mee has all the heart, and I salute him. It’s just that the writing is a bit boring because it is so plain and predictable. There are heartwarming scenes but from page 1, despite all the hurdles thrown by Mee in the air for me to believe otherwise, I knew that the ending would be happy: that they would succeed in running the zoo.

If you are interested on animals, however, I still recommend this book especially if you are planning to buy your own zoo. Quite informative, I would say.

That radio teaser is still being played. I just heard it while typing this review. After reading this book though, I don’t have any interest to see the movie.
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Oct 31, 2012 Melissa (ladybug) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, team-read, biography-memoir

While I basically liked this book, I did have several problems with it. The author would (frequently) say something like "but more on that later" but then Mr. Mee never returned to the subject. This happened frequently towards the end of the book. I hated this aspect of the book. Another issue, I had problems with Mr. Mee going on about money complaints and dealings with back room boys and others. He was beating a dead horse with some of his story. It was like he was trying to think of what to w...more

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Jan 26, 2012 Yzobelle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: animal lovers

Shelves: for-sharing-at-blink

After loving the movie so much, it is difficult for me to give this book 3 stars. I thought and hoped I would be able to proudly give it 5 shining stars.

The book is not entirely bad. Benjamin Mee wrote as a journalist would -- the style was flowing, easy-to-read, a bit witty, and has a pretty good play of words. It was perhaps the focus of the book and the diversion from the movie (or rather, vice-versa -- the movie diverted from the book) that made it a little disappointing. I was expecting to...more

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Jan 01, 2009 Matt rated it 3 of 5 stars

Apparently in England you can buy a zoo if you have a million pounds or so...

The best parts were the references to Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, and the part where when they are testing the zoo restaurant before the zoo opens they drink most of the keg of Stella Artois before the zoo opens...

I felt slightly used when it became apparent that one of the author's motivations for buying the zoo was so that he could write a book about it.

Overall the writing is average, but it was a q...more

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Sep 26, 2008 Ellen rated it 3 of 5 stars

It's written rather breathlessly and the photo gallery is completely unsatisfying (more shots of the house and zoo rather than their animal inhabitants would have been nice, not to mention more photos of the family) but the tale itself is pretty darn touching.

5 likes · like · see review

Mar 21, 2010 gargamelscat rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, 2010

An interesting story spoiled by a literal take, inadequate writing quality and a superficial treatment.

Ok for a memoir maybe there is no requirement for flights of lyrical prose but I expect better from a professional writer.

The superficiality bothered me - we get no real idea of the numbers involved and I'd like to have seen it treated as more of a business case study.

The park itself, the background history and personality of the animals are never detailed except as involved in a couple of anec...more

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Apr 16, 2012 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: animals, nonfiction

I did enjoy this book. To be specific, I enjoyed the storyline--a family in England buys a small rundown zoo and works to get it licensed and started up again in the midst of a family tragedy. Now that being said, this book was in serious need of a good editor with lots of red ink. At times it did not flow logically and suffered from a severe overuse of parentheses. Rarely was there a simple sentence containing one uninterrupted thought. And it was downright aggravating that the author would com...more

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Mar 22, 2012 Lisa Kay rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: m-library-sj-audio-oda, animal-animals-in-story, genre-memoir, genre-grief, has-a-movie, 2012-in-2012-group-challenge, authors-m, authors-b, male-pov

★★★½✩ (This is a review of the audiobook.) This was narrated by Gildart Jackson, who does a decent job of reading this memoir. However, he pretty much sounds like he is talking from a lectern, if somewhat informally. In his defense, this is in large part due to the way the author wrote the story.

I can see why this book would make a good movie. Nevertheless, the book spends a lot of time on Mr. Mee’s troubles with wills, bank loans, finances, and his wife's illness and death, when - sorry to say...more

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Apr 13, 2013 M.T. McGuire rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Having picked this book up, on a whim, at a car boot sale, I read it in a morning. The style is easy to read and voice is particularly clear, I really got the impression that I was sitting having a chat with Benjamin Mee. The voice is very strong. He's a journalist and it's an easy read journalistic style which I enjoyed. Because it's written by him, it has an immediacy that some of the more obviously ghost written celebrity biographies lack.

The book is funny enough to have me laughing out loud...more

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Apr 02, 2013 CookieDemon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: animals-nature, non-fiction

This isn’t just an animal story. It is a story of grief, love, family, friendship and one family’s determination to rescue a run-down zoo and prevent its 200 animals from being culled in the process- despite them having no experience whatsoever in the zoological world.

Benjamin Mee and his family see an advert in an estate agents leaflet for the sale of Dartmouth Zoo in Devon. They have no qualifications in running such a place, but they do have assets which they decide to combine- and make a bid...more This isn’t just an animal story. It is a story of grief, love, family, friendship and one family’s determination to rescue a run-down zoo and prevent its 200 animals from being culled in the process- despite them having no experience whatsoever in the zoological world.

Benjamin Mee and his family see an advert in an estate agents leaflet for the sale of Dartmouth Zoo in Devon. They have no qualifications in running such a place, but they do have assets which they decide to combine- and make a bid for the land. This book chronicles the trials and tribulations of a 21st Century family trying to bring a tired zoo up to scratch and get that all important zoo licence which means they can open to the general public. Amidst all of the chaos are escaped animals, family losses and complex financial legalities which ensures that Mee just doesn’t get a break.

I really enjoyed Mee’s writing style. He is funny and engaging in a ‘doesn’t try too hard’ kind of way. The relationship between he and his wife Katherine is at the core of the book and I really felt for what they were going through personally. I admired the way he threw his energies into the zoo- it was the ultimate distraction for him and a lesser man would have just given up. He paints a good picture of the animals, their complex care and the zoo surroundings and should I head back down to Devon I will definitely be paying the place a visit.

My copy of this novel was a film tie-in edition which came without any pictures whatsoever, which was disappointing- I’ve not even seen the film, nor do I plan to as Hollywood seems to have put a completely new spin on the book by all accounts. I do think that this book could have benefitted from some colour photos of the real Dartmouth Zoo however, merely to give the reader a better idea of the condition of the premises when they bought it, as well as some of its animal inhabitants, like the other book editions seem to have. Also, I did find it a bit irritating that Mee kept on saying things like ‘more of that later...’ and then never picking up the plot thread! Grr.

Those few niggles aside, I found this true story to be an inspiring read. It just goes to show what people can do when they really put their minds to something (though cash reserves in the millions are always a big help of course!) and I loved the support that Ben, Duncan and their mum had from the majority of their family, as well as the zoo staff. I don’t mind admitting that the epilogue also left me with a tear in my eye. *Sniff.*
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Jan 24, 2013 D.w. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

Another book where I had seen the movie first.

Here though the story was much more compelling than the movie was and it was a shame that they transplanted the true tale from England to California. The makers of the movie though did take liberties to make the tale more friendly to audience and children, than Mee, telling the truth of his life, did.

But as an adult, able to read and understand the author's journey, this is a story worth the read, just as watching the movie, with this additional unde...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Andrea Mullarkey rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: audio, memoir

A family in 21st century England decides to sell all their assets and buy a zoo. They aren’t zookeepers or zoologists or park experts and their qualifications for running the zoo are pretty slim when they undertake this adventure. When I first heard about this true story I thought to myself “I’ve got to know more about that!” So I downloaded the audiobook ready for a family roller coaster story. In the end it was a fairly tepid read, which is surprising given how many wild animals and economic c...more

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May 25, 2012 Keilani Ludlow rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a wonderful book! So many laugh out loud moments even in the midst of sadness and trial. I saw and enjoyed the movie, but the book really expands the story. However, without the movie I would never have known of the book so can't deride the movie for changing so much.

He is an excellent writer, witty and observant. As a fan of Gerard Durrell (another writer with a zoo), I also really enjoyed his discussions of the different animals, habits that they have, bits and pieces of scientific inform...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Jen Russell rated it 3 of 5 stars

I liked this book and the author reminded me a lot of Chris. It was exciting, interesting, and emotionally touching. Some sections had quite a bit of foul language when he is quoting other. I would have rather he "bleeped" them out. Can't wait to see the movie now. There was a BBC2 tv series produced while they were trying to buy the zoo- opening day. It would also be fun to see that now that I feel as if I know the characters.

In the memoir, the author's father dies. His mom is contemplating se...more

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Apr 13, 2012 Sandie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-books, contemporary-lit, feel-good-reads

Recently saw this family friendly movie and enjoyed it. If you have read Benjamin Mee's book WE BOUGHT A ZOO you may be disappointed at the "hollywood spin". Any similarity between the book and the movie basically ends with the title.

In the book Mee's father died and HIS MOTHER bought the Dartmoor Zoo (located in the UK not California) using funds received from the sale of her home in Surrey. Mee's wife Katherine was alive at the time of the purchase and moved to the zoo with their two children...more Recently saw this family friendly movie and enjoyed it. If you have read Benjamin Mee's book WE BOUGHT A ZOO you may be disappointed at the "hollywood spin". Any similarity between the book and the movie basically ends with the title.

In the book Mee's father died and HIS MOTHER bought the Dartmoor Zoo (located in the UK not California) using funds received from the sale of her home in Surrey. Mee's wife Katherine was alive at the time of the purchase and moved to the zoo with their two children Milo age six (hardly the trouble teen, Dylan, as portrayed in the movie) and Ella age four (a seven year old named Rosie in the movie). His brother, portrayed in the movie by Thomas Hayden Church is not Mee's only sibling nor was he an unwilling participant in the venture, but a willing accomplice. Also, the Benjamin Mee in the book does not come across as the devoted, loving husband and father but as a rather selfish "I want what I want" personality who willingly uproots his family again and again to pursue his dreams.

Those are just a few of the more glaring differences between book and "true story" movie. These discrepancies do not detract from the movies overall appeal (particularly if you have not read the book). As I mentioned, the movie is as warm and gooey as a hot fudge sundae and provides a great viewing experience for the entire family. Particularly enchanting is Maggie Elizabeth Jones who plays little Rosie. She is truly a delight to watch as she attempts to assume the roll of woman of the house. Another performance that tickled my funny bone was that of MacCready the volatile zoo carpenter as played by Angus Macfadyen a very talented and, in my opinion, underrated actor who has portrayed everyone from Robert the Bruce in Braveheart to Richard Burton and even did a turn as Sandra Bullocks fiancé in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.

While the book provides the reader with a more in depth look at Mee, the man, and the intricate problems involved the running of a zoo, he comes across as not very likable. The movie, on the other hand, give us a kinder, gentler Mee as we watch a heartbroken Matt Damon cope with the loss of his wife and attempts to raise two children while mastering a domain consisting of over 200 exotic animals. For once, the movie outshines the book........or perhaps I was just in the mood for less reality and more fantasy in my day.(less)

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Mar 17, 2012 Sim Carter rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: film, books-made-into-movies, memoir

About the Book:
Knowing it was the basis for what looked like a romantic comedy starring Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson, I really wanted to LOVE this book. It was not at all what I expected and I tried to enjoy it for its own merits. If you've seen the movie, believe me, this is nothing like the film. BUT if you are an animal lover and find topics like extracting a tooth from a bear or how to get a decrepit animal park in shape for the inspectors, then this book may be for you. It was occasion...more

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Mar 04, 2012 Terri rated it 5 of 5 stars

Part of what I'm writing is a review of the book, and part of it is a review of the reviews of the book. First of all, a disclaimer: I am primarily, by personal choice, a fiction reader, but I do know that one must bring different reading skills and expectations to a non-fiction account than to a novel. This book is exactly what it says, the story of a young British family living in France (think of some of those House Hunters International episodes from HGTV). The father is a writer of DIY arti...more Part of what I'm writing is a review of the book, and part of it is a review of the reviews of the book. First of all, a disclaimer: I am primarily, by personal choice, a fiction reader, but I do know that one must bring different reading skills and expectations to a non-fiction account than to a novel. This book is exactly what it says, the story of a young British family living in France (think of some of those House Hunters International episodes from HGTV). The father is a writer of DIY articles who has a long-standing project going of writing about animal behavior; the mother has a rather varied background in commercial art and design. The mother is diagnosed with a brain cancer which will be recurring. In spite of this setback, they continue with their plans for a life in France on a remodeled country property. After his father's death, the opportunity pops up for his family to buy a run down wildlife park in Devon on Dartmoor. (Terribly romantic setting, if you think about stories rather than the prison.) Difficulties ensue--legal, financial, etc. Finally get the property. Trials and stories, some sad, some funny, some just factual, of gradually restoring the park and turning it into a conservation-minded, financially stable business.

What the book is not-- It is not the movie, which has departed rather far from the original story in many instances. It is not a "how-to" book on financing a business or animal care. Admittedly, one does pick up little tidbits here and there, such as if one needs to anesthetize a tiger, do not use a sedative designed for a horse. It is also not a book in which you get the feeling that real-life events have been altered to make them more exciting. This is a story about an extended family taking a risk and overcoming obstacles and a fairly frank evaluation of what tangible and intangible benefits they have gained from the experience. The reader gets a good idea of what the author/narrator really detests and what he finds quite satisfactory about the experience. (less)

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Jan 22, 2012 ♥Xeni♥ rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, ebook, animal, memoir, biography, nature

Alright, so normally I don't pick up a book and read it all the way trough in one (or one and a little) sitting unless it's captivating and usually fiction. Yet, this non fiction book on one man's experience in buying a zoo I read from 1 am to 6 am and then the last 15% after I woke up at noon. Finished the whole thing before 1 pm.

And I don't know why.

Certainly I've been reading some crazy shit lately: John Dies at the End (fucked up fiction which is screwing with my sense of insanity), The Er ...more Alright, so normally I don't pick up a book and read it all the way trough in one (or one and a little) sitting unless it's captivating and usually fiction. Yet, this non fiction book on one man's experience in buying a zoo I read from 1 am to 6 am and then the last 15% after I woke up at noon. Finished the whole thing before 1 pm.

And I don't know why.

Certainly I've been reading some crazy shit lately: John Dies at the End (fucked up fiction which is screwing with my sense of insanity), The Erotic Adventures of Ambrose Horne (an extremely odd revitalization of Sherlock Holmes with a very erotic twist), Annabel (fiction work about a hermaphrodite Innuit child), The Rose Garden (historical-romance-scifi-time travel-adventure fiction which makes me question both time travel and love), Slave Species of God (non fiction trying to explain our origins) as well as countless of crazy website blogs and posts mostly focusing on reddit and crack.com such as the crazy interview questions google doesn't ask anymore, glitch in the matrix stories, ACTA things, illuminati, the music industry and this list is probably boring you to tears right now if you're even still reading.

My point was that all these crazy things have gotten my mind spinning and yet I stay up an entire night to read an (albeit rather humerus) account of a man acquiring a run down zoo against all odds and all the crazy things that happen when you decide to do something so majorly insane.

All I know is that one day, I'd given the chance, I too will buy a zoo. Hopefully I too will have amazing encounters with wolves escaping, jaguars tearing through containers and ballistic monkeys. But if I can't have that, I definitely will continue to visit zoo's and animal parks and happily endorse them with plenty of cash spent. Why? Because not only did this book show me how incredibly ballsy and clinically insane you have to be to buy a zoo, but also that it's one of the best things you could do for animals at this time.

I'd always been one I'd those people who'd happily debate on keeping animals locked up in fake environments vs. freeing them to be hunted and poached and driven to extinction. I think I've finally found my footing on this issue, and it's on the sides of the animals.

I plan to watch this movie / tv show. And if I'm ever in England I am definitely stopping by to invisibly help continue this amazing endeavor. That said, I still like fiction works more, but this book gripped my heart. (less)

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Jan 16, 2012 Jane rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, nonfiction

Once the family bought the zoo, I enjoyed this book a great deal. However, it was very slow starting. The opening chapter deals with life in France, as the author's wife is diagnosed with a brain tumor. I'm sure it was very important to the author to include this, but it would have served the book better if it had been covered later in the book as a look back. It dragged the book down and made me reluctant to continue.

I run a movie club and we are going to see the movie. I like to read the book...more

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Jan 08, 2012 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I had a really hard time rating this book. Mostly, because I love animals and was afraid I'd be a bit biased. Here is why I only gave it four stars. First, Benjamin Mee is a DIY author for a magazine and that is how he basically writes the book-like a DIY article. He occasionally gets off track and wanders a page or two on a subject that, to be honest, bored me to death. Not to mention, that I sometimes felt he mentioned certain people as if he was trying to include as many "thank you, this woul...more

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Oct 17, 2011 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-nonfiction, autobiography

We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Changed Their Lives Forever by Benjamin Mee is a look at a family that decides to buy a zoo and raise their family on that property, but also ends up dealing with the tragedy of the brain tumor and death of Mrs. Katherine Mee.

The story is interesting, poignant and bittersweet. It focuses on the rundown zoo, an ecletic staff and a wide variety of animals, some of which were in detereoratin...more

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Jun 03, 2011 Nikitabanana rated it 2 of 5 stars

In “We Bought a Zoo”, Benjamin Mee tells the story of how his family came to buy the Dartmoor Zoological Park and the great lengths it took to revitalize the zoo and prepare it for opening day. After his father dies, his 76 year old mother needs to sell their old house and eventually the family decides to purchase a zoo with the money. Mee, who writes DIY magazine articles, along with his mother, wife and two children move in and immediately start working on renovating this zoo in hopes of it so...more In “We Bought a Zoo”, Benjamin Mee tells the story of how his family came to buy the Dartmoor Zoological Park and the great lengths it took to revitalize the zoo and prepare it for opening day. After his father dies, his 76 year old mother needs to sell their old house and eventually the family decides to purchase a zoo with the money. Mee, who writes DIY magazine articles, along with his mother, wife and two children move in and immediately start working on renovating this zoo in hopes of it someday turning a profit. Between restoring the bedraggled zoo, complete with decaying buildings, managing a ragtag group of animals as well as an eclectic staff and a reputation that had been quickly going to the wolves, Mee and his family are also struggling with day to day family life. Benjamin’s wife Katherine gets saddled with a diagnosis of terminal glioblastoma. Mee navigates the readers through the practical aspects of zoo life, an occasionally emotional staff, their money problems and the treatment for and eventual death of Katherine.

I could never get engaged in this book. I was bogged down with the trivial and unnecessary details of day to day zoo maintenance. Mee tends to meander with too-long explanations for one-sentence points, and the awe he feels about each individual animal is repetitive. Coupled with Britishisms that are never explained and a curious lack of varied wild animal stories it was easy for me to put the book down and forget about it for a while. Even though I liked Katherine, I wasn’t too upset when she died and after her death Mee devotes almost the entire book to the zoo’s problems. He barely mentions his two young children coping with the loss of their mother or how he deals with her death (he mentions crying al lot and taking solace in the fact that other people have worse problems). The book is just devoid of any real interesting events or twists and turns, committing the worst crime that a book could: being boring. The only thing I felt when I finished the book was relief that it was finally over.
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Mar 30, 2011 TheInnocentButler rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

My four-sentence or less take on the plot: Benjamin Mee and his family decide an extremely run down zoo (so run down that the animals are going to be quickly euthanized if a buyer isn't found). The zoo provides an extreme amount of both enjoyment and difficulty. During this time, Mee runs in to personal tragedy when his beloved wife gets diagnosed with brain cancer. This book deals with a lot of the nitty gritty business details of the buying and opening of a zoo.

Rating: 8

What worked:I really li...more

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Nov 18, 2010 Patrick Gibson rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: truth_sort-of

After moving his family all over Gods half acre, Benjamin Mee finally settles in a French barn/house and set about writing some sort of “great” book. Then his father dies and his siblings begin to consider purchasing a zoo. His 76 year old mother supports this idea, but negotiations fall apart and each sibling goes about their way. Mee, his wife Katherine, son Milo and daughter Ella are busy with daily life when a health problem strikes Katherine. The Mee family goes into survival mode. In the m...more

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Jan 09, 2010 Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: own

I enjoyed this tale of a man who's family bought a zoo and worked to rehabilitate it. The idea that one can, without any previous zoological experience, buy a zoo full of dangerous and exotic creatures and make a success of it is pretty exciting, charming, and inspiring. The writing is that of a personal memoir- heavy on the experience and feelings of undertaking such an endeavor and less on the practicalities of it, with liberal tales of the zoo's animals thrown in for good measure.

What I woul...more

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Aug 04, 2009 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008-reads

I got this as a Advanced Readers Copy and was very pleased with it. Benjamin Mee and Weinstein Books has a sure fire hit on their hands with this book!

Some parts of the book were emotionally tough to get through, however by the time you get to that part you already feel that you are part of the family. You also begin to feel as you are part of the team at the zoo.

Benjamin (not to be confused with his father Ben) goes looking for a better place to live with his family and ends up buying a delapit...more

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May 17, 2009 Kat Shelton marked it as to-read

Book Jacket:
In the market for a house and the adventure of a lifetime,
Benjamin Mee decided to uproot his family and move them to
an unlikely new home: a dilapidated zoo in the English
countryside, complete with over 200 exotic animals. Mee,
who specializes in animal behavior, had a dream to
refurbish the zoo and run it as a family business.
Naturally, friends and colleagues thought he was crazy.

Mee's pipe dream became a reality in October 2006, when he
and the rest of the Mee clan--wife Katherine, son...more

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May 21, 2012 Diane rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoirs

This is a fun and interesting read, though it has a sad story at the heart of it. Benjamin Mee and his family decide to buy a rundown zoo in England, but in the middle of the adventure, his wife dies after a lengthy battle with a brain tumor. (In the overly precious movie version of this book, the wife's death is what causes Benjamin to buy the zoo, in addition to other Hollywood script doctoring.)

I like stories about fixer-uppers and when a group pulls together to accomplish a goal, which is wh...more

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Apr 26, 2012 Tara rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A truly glorious story that is let down by poor quality of writing.
Benjamin Mee is (apparently) a journalist. Given a short topic, and finite space, he may very well be competent in this role. However, he was not cut out to write a novel.

I found that common errors in grammar and syntax made some parts of the book difficult to read. He has a tendency to drift away from topic, even mid-sentence, so that the end of a paragraph can be very different from the beginning. There are also a few detailed...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Feistytiger rated it 4 of 5 stars

I saw this on a charity shop shelf and thought it was interesting (before i had heard it was a tv program and now a film). It was interesting and it only took me an evening to get through. The story itself starts off slowly, but once he gets into the swing of the zoo it picks up pace. With all the events he described you can hardly believe its true, all the adventures and dramas he goes through.

The writing style keeps you gripped through out, and it was a book i could not put down. The escapes...more

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About Benjamin Mee

Benjamin Mee, a former bricklayer and decorator, returned to education in his early twenties in order to investigate animal intelligence. Ben studied psychology at UCL and wrote his dissertation on dolphin intelligence, after which his first article appeared in the Independent, while he was a student on the MSc in Science Journalism at Imperial College.

As the world preferred articles on health and...more

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“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.” — 103 people liked it

“And for once, Donald Rumsfeld, in the news at the time over the Iraq war made sense to me: "As we know," he said, famously, "there are known knowns-things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns-things we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns- things we don't know we don't know.” — 6 people liked it

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title link	preview: We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Change Their Lives Forever
avg rating	preview: We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Anima Goodreads rating: 3.39 (2811 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3761750-we-bought-a-zoo?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347352426l/3761750.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3761750-we-bought-a-zoo?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Change Their Lives Forever by Benjamin Mee[/url]

We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Change Their Lives Forever

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