Three Singles to Adventure

by Gerald Durrell

three singles to adventure takes the reader to south America, where he meets the sakiwinki and the sloth clad in bright green fur, where he can hear the horrifying sound of piranha fish on the rampage, or learn how to lasso a galloping anteater.

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals, Travel, Nature, Humor, Memoir, Biography

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Gerald "Gerry" Malcolm Durrell was born in India in 1925. His elder siblings are Lawrence Durrell, Leslie Durrell, and Margaret Durrell. His family settled on Corfu when Gerald was a boy and he spent his time studying its wildlife. He relates these experiences in the trilogy beginning with My Family And Other Animals, and continuing with Birds, Beasts, And Relatives and The Garden Of The Gods. In his books he writes with wry humour and great perception about both the humans and the animals he meets.

On leaving Corfu he returned to England to work on the staff of Whipsnade Park as a student keeper. His adventures there are told with characteristic energy in Beasts In My Belfry. A few years later, Gerald began organising his own animal-collecting expeditions. The first, to the Cameroons, was followed by expeditions to Paraguay, Argentina and Sierra Leone. He recounts these experiences in a number of books, including The Drunken Forest. Gerald also visited many countries while shooting various television series, including An Amateur Naturalist. In 1958 Gerald Durrell realised a lifelong dream when he set up the Jersey Zoological Park, followed a few years later by the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust.

Gerald was married twice; Jacquie Durrell (1951-1979), Lee Durrell (1979-1995).

Gerald Durrell's style is exuberant, passionate and acutely observed. He died in 1995.

Reviews

[Bionic Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three Singles to Adventure is about Gerald Durrell's travels in search of exotic animals in South America.

"Adventure" is the name of a small village near Georgetown, the capital of Guyana. This early book by Gerald Durrell chronicles his 1950 expedition to what was then called British Guiana, to bring back a living collection of birds, mammals, reptiles and fish indigenous to that part of South America.

His first sighting from the ferryboat is of a vividly coloured lizard - an iguana - in its natural habitat. Durrell immediately contrasts this with the "dull lethargic greyish creatures in zoos" and the book continues in this vein, with breathtaking descriptions of the natural flora and fauna. The wild at that time was clearly very different from now with its unspoilt diversity.

Durrell has a way of describing in full technicolour; yet turn a few pages and his sense of the ridiculous is in full sway, with yet another hilarious anecdote about how a certain animal got the better of him, or how he found himself in a very dodgy situation. The horses for instance unexpectedly seemed to have a will of their own and were often uncontrollable. In these early animal-collecting forays, Durrell would be relying on the local people both to help and to identify what generally lived there. So he (and we) would learn that a "pimpla hog" was the local name for what we call a coati-mundi, or tree porcupine, "barim" were anteaters, "sakiwinkis" squirrel monkeys, "crabdogs" crab-eating raccoons, a "water cumoodi" an anaconda - the aquatic constricting snake. (It seemed perfectly reasonable, incidentally, that this had to be carefully measured in order to decide how much was to be paid for him. As usual, it was merely a question of how.)

Opossums, or uwaries were disliked by all the local people as aggressive scavangers. There is a bloodcurdling description of 3 opossums being contained in a sack while Durrell prepared a suitable container to house them in temporarily - except that when he opened the sack there were only 2 oppossums - plus a few body parts. A chastened Durrell took notice of the local people's knowledge again and decided to obtain moonshine uwaries instead. He had been told that they were less aggressive, so he went to great lengths to obtain one - only to find that on the next stage of his journey they were very common. There were other animals which surprised him with their ferocity such as the 2-toed sloths and peccaries (a sort of pig.)

There are many wry descriptions of this type, of captures that weren't quite what they were intended to be. Flying to Rupununi, Durrell was assured that the store at Karanambo would be well supplied with everything he would need in the line of traps, ropes, wooden crates etc. only to find that having travelled there with minimum supplies there was nothing of this type available. In fact the whole trip has an ad hoc feel, with temporary containers hastily assembled to house the animals. One animal was brought to him at the last minute when they had already loaded the ferry. Durrell had no choice but to dash off the ferry and plead with a shopowner for a container. (To his credit, the shopkeeper immediately upended a carton of tinned goods.) Another time an electric eel which Durrell had been delighted to acquire, managed to escape on the boat, slipping back into the water as they all watched in helpless resignation.

A cayman he had spent a lot of effort in capturing was not allowed on the plane home due to lack of space. There were piranhas and caymans which he had been told "never attack", though Durrell tended towards a cautious approach here. Just as on one occasion he and a friend were happily having a rest, sitting in conveniently-sized holes on the sandy beach - but his description makes it clear that they would not have been so relaxed had they known that the holes had been made by stingrays.

Many of these animals are familiar to us nowadays from wildlife parks, but it is worth remembering that they would have been unfamiliar to his readers in the 1950's. It is greatly through his efforts that we have the privilege to view them in the flesh. And even more importantly that he brought about better transportation regulations and huge improvements in zoos. An example of an exotic animal which may now seem familiar is the capybara, or "waterhaas", that he found in Rupununi. This of course is the largest rodent, comparable with a medium sized dog. Its peaceful, friendly behaviour was not then well documented. We now know that it behaves much like its tiny relative, the guinea pig. There is a hilarious episode at dead of night, where the entire household was wakened by the eerie sound of a capybara thoughtfully pulling on the wire and releasing it so that cage bars vibrated like a harp. The capybara then thumped its hind feet on a tin tray, sounding like stage thunder. Anyone having kept guinea pigs would recognise this gnawing behaviour - and the animal's squeaking interest in the sounds it could produce.

The animals just keep coming: soldier rats with spines, bright red furred howler monkeys, ameva, who would shed their tail when stressed, tegu, the largest freshwater fish (6-7' long) called an arapainma, who Durrell was delighted to discover, exuded a milk-like substance from its head on which young "feed". There were huge frogs too, 2' long, but also some smaller than a fingernail. One tadpole they caught was 6 inch long! This was a "paradoxical frog" tadpole - and would most surprisingly "grow smaller" into an average-sized adult frog. There were pipa toads, whose eggs once laid sank into the female's back. Durrell writes a marvellous description of them hatching out through little flaps or manholes, guarded and watched with incredulous wonder by a crew of "hard-living, drinking gambling unemotional men".

The local people tended to keep wild animals as pets much as we do. All the macaws in Guyana seemed to be called "Robert", and could speak their name much like "Polly" parrot here. Durrell himself ended up making a pet of one or two of the animals. There was an overly affectionate curassow bird (a bit like a black turkey) who seemed to delight in sitting or leaning on everybody at the most difficult times, so that frequently a job was interrupted or abandoned. Both cat and dog-lovers may recognise this predicament….

Durrell's descriptions of the birds in their natural habitat in Guiana are beautiful. He pondered on why they have such conspicuous colouration - bright blue tangers, vivid red military starlings or yellow and black marsh birds, all against a leafy background, with no concession to the camouflage usual in this terrain. Other birds had parallels with ones more familiar to us. Jacana were like moorhens with their enormous splayed feet. He described them stepping across lily pads, with a dozen or so tiny fluffy chicks following all on one leaf, their miniscule weight not dipping the lily pad in the slightest.

Gerald Durrell's fascination and respect for animals shines through every description, and it is this that forms the basis of his later philosophy. He believed that it is fundamentally wrong to remove animals from their natural habitat, unless it is to save them from extinction. In later years of course, Durrell founded his Wildlife Conservation Trust in Jersey, which has had some success in breeding species which are threatened in the wild. Marmosets, golden lion tamarins, Goeldi's monkeys and howler monkeys have all been part of this captive breeding programme, and by returning them to the wild some of what has been lost has been restored. This book is breathtaking in its vivid descriptions, entertaining and informative. With the wisdom of hindsight, we can acknowledge any scruples we may have about the ethics of "collecting" animals in this way, as being appropriate for the time. It also means that there is a tiny spec of optimism on the horizon when we consider animal conservation.

[Simon Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains the following:
1. Three Englishmen, naked save for their hats, swimming across a piranha-filled lake
2. A confrontation with an electric eel in a canoe
3. A horseback chase... of an anteater.
Gerald Durrell has long been a hero of mine, and one of my favourite authors, and with this book I have come to realise something. He truly is the Doctor Who of conservation - if the Doctor was a madman with a box, Durrell is a madman with a collecting net, and this book proves it arguably more than any other I've read. Detailing his 1950 animal collecting expedition to Guyana (then British Guiana) 'Three Singles To Adventure' takes its title from a set of tickets that Durrell purchased at the start of his adventure, buying passage for himself and two eccentric companions to the tiny dot on the map of 'Adventure'.

Before he became a beacon of hope in the international conservation community, Durrell was an animal collector - a man who traveled the world catching exotic specimens to sell to zoos and collectors. This life, based on this particular book, was just as interesting as you might imagine - quite apart from the small tasks of locating and catching a whole variety of animals, Durrell was required to care for his charges for months at a time. Thanks to his encyclopedic zoological knowledge and passion for animals (as well as being a great negotiator) he succeeded spectacularly, and was eventually able to set up his own zoo, specifically for breeding endangered animals. In this particular book however this is all in the distant future, and Durrell's mission is simply to catch anything rare and interesting, and then keep it alive. And when the specimens in question range from hummingbirds to cayman and hogs to toads, that is more than enough to write about.

As with his other books the prose is light and breezy if somewhat dated, and his characterisation of animals is remarkable. Never stooping to anthropomorphisation Durrell manages to communicate the essence of an animal's personality perfectly - and in particular I now desperately want to own a pimpla hog - as well as the exasperation of his colleagues, who more often than not found themselves significantly further over their heads than they bargained for. One sequence in particular detailing the response of hardened sailors to a remarkable hatching of toad eggs captures the wonder of the moment, set in the middle of a dark Atlantic ocean, perfectly.

It's light, delightfully written adventure fare. And it's not claiming to be anything more than that. Durrell is well known for viewing writing as a chore, albeit a very useful one when raising funds for his conservation work, and he did not attempt to accomplish some deep meditation on the human condition with the book. He wrote it for people to enjoy, to laugh at, and to learn from. And he succeeds brilliantly in doing just that. Highly recommended.

[Literally Lesia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Так цікаво читати вже про дорослого Джеррі, який так само обожнює тварин і природу навколо! Після трилогії Корфу ця книжка сприймається так, ніби повертаєшся до старого друга, за яким сумував. Я рада, що взяла цю книгу у відпустку і прочитала її в дорозі.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Animal collecting adventures in Guiana, South America (first published in 1954). Highlight: pipa toad reproduction and birth. A solid Durrell book but not a stand-out for me. My favorite lines: “I must say you’ve done your best to make this trip a memorable one,” said Bob bitterly. “Never a dull moment. Just like a Butlin’s Holiday Camp. First anacondas, then piranhas, and now sloths...”

[Olena Brazhnyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Мені в більшості випадків подобався гумор Даррела, описи природи й тварин, але я постійно вболівала за тих, на кого полювали, аніж мисливців, зі сторони яких був і автор.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Randal White · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alas, Poor Cuthbert! 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.

[Igenlode Wordsmith · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a decent average Durrell. Not one of his more memorable ones, somehow.

[Manuel Alfonseca · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

ENGLISH: This is the fourth time I've read this book, the second written by Durrell, which relates his third expedition collecting animals for zoos, this time to British Guyana. The best parts here are the anteaters: the giant one (Myrmecophaga), and the silky (pygmy) anteater (Cyclopes).

ESPAÑOL: Esta es la cuarta vez que leo este libro, el segundo que escribió Durrell, que relata su tercera expedición en busca de animales para zoológicos, esta vez a la Guayana Británica. Lo mejor son las partes sobre los "osos" hormigueros: el gigante (Myrmecophaga) y el serafín de platanar (Cyclopes).

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had great fun reading this tale of animal collecting in South America. The major types of landscape covered include waterways, dense jungle with orchids and open pampas. Durrell, his work partner Smith and an artist named Bob, went off merrily to get the native people to help them collect animals for zoos and sanctuaries. He had already realised that some animals were in danger of dying out through habitat destruction as the human population exploded.

The many rodents, birds, reptiles and anteaters are described well with a good look at physical and behavioural adaptations. Some of the creatures adapted at once to a basic diet and others were let run around a room where they sat on the men's feet no matter what was happening.

I downloaded an ARC from Net Galley as the Jersey Wildlife Conservation Trust has made these books available again in e-form. This is an unbiased review.

[Anirudh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A superb read. Funny from start to finish.

[Olena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Книжка написана в середині 20го сторіччя, деякі речі наразі не актуальні і здаються живодерством. Автор мандрує і збирає тварин для зоопарків Британії. Поневолювать, переправлять на інший континент здається злочином зараз. Але Даррел гуманно з ними поводиться і по справжньому любить. Поруч в тексті місцеві наприклад, які цими тваринами харчуються. Цікаві були часи конєшно
Плюс фонд Даррела досі існує (письменник помер 1995), займається зберіганням рідких видів тварин. І сам автор зоолог, яким я зоологів в дитинстві уявляла. Їздить, збирає, вивчає, цікаво розповідає.

Текст смішний, і звісно гуглиш всіх тваринок бо цікаво як вони виглядають і переживаєш за кожну істоту в книзі. Для дітей-підлітків круто для розширення сприйняття світу, для дорослих цікаво бо пізнання незнаваного або забутого.
Мені сподобалось, буду читати ще.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

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!

While Bob was absorbed in the job of disentangling the hammocks from their ropes, Cuthbert cautiously approached across the floor and lay down just behind his feet. During the course of his struggles with a hammock Bob stepped backwards and tripped heavily over the recumbent bird behind him. Cuthbert gave a squawk of alarm and retired to his corner again. When he judged that Bob was once more engrossed, he shuffled forward and laid himself across his shoes. The next thing I knew there was a crash, and Bob fell to the floor together with the hammocks. From underneath the wreckage of mosquito-nets and ropes Cuthbert peered, peeting indignantly.

There’s one funny anecdote after another, many of them involving the hapless Bob, who only came along to paint pictures and finds himself joining Durrell in the most hair-raising of escapades!

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.

[William Leight · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you read of one of Gerald Durrell's books about his animal collecting expeditions, you almost certainly know what you're going to get (in my case particularly, as I'm pretty sure I've read all of them before). The approximate recipe is as follows: one part lyrical descriptions of scenery, one part fascinating and easily accessible to the layman descriptions of animals, and one part anecdotes ranging from the merely amusing to the hilarious. Shake well, spread over a bed of competent prose, and serve. (A couple of Durrell's earliest books, describing his expeditions in Cameroon, have a tinge of patronizing racism to them which can be rather off-putting for a modern reader, but this book, which covers an expedition to Guyana, thankfully escapes that problem.) Readers unfamiliar with Durrell should of course start with "My Family and Other Animals" and "Birds Beasts and Relatives", two of the funniest books ever written, but if you've read those this is as good a jumping-off point for the rest of his oeuvre as any.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Join Gerald Durrell as he sets off on another wild adventure, this time to the jungles and grasslands of South America, to what was then British Guiana and is now Guyana, seeking those endangered animals for his Isle of Jersey Preservation Zoo.

Durrell was one of our great comic writers, and you’ll soon the ridiculous and crazy things that happen to him and his friend, Bob, as they pursue snakes and Sakiwinkis, Red Howlers and reluctant sloths, giant and pygmy anteaters, capybara and the alligator like cayman, crab dogs and carpenter birds, as well as the cute pimpla hog and the well named, tank ‘e God.

Durrell will have you giggling, then laughing out loud, as he encounters jungle friends and weird and cute animals as he and Bob find themselves in the most peculiar and bizarre circumstances capturing some of the most unusual animals with their own unique personalities.

You’ll be tracking down the rest of Gerald Durrell’s comic adventures – they’re that good!

[Shrilaxmi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Absolutely hilarious account of Durrell's specimen-collecting trip to Guyana. I spent so much time just looking up all the animals that he talked about and consequently learned an insane amount about South American fauna. A personal favourite was the pipa toad. I watched videos and looked at pictures of that one for hours. The book was a little racist though.

[Nandana Nallapu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading about Durrell's adventures was very amusing. My favorite in the book though is neither Durrell nor any of his companions. It is the bird Cuthbert, which was an utterly funny and by far the most interesting character in Three Singles to Adventure

[Deevena Jemima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent..as always. Gerald Durrell has definitely got a way with words. I love his books.

[Frumenty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of many of Gerald Durrell’s charming books that I read as a child. I found this copy in a bag of books destined for a charity shop, and I have only briefly interrupted its passage to its intended destination. It’s a Penguin paperback with the price “5/6” printed prominently on the cover. Australia made the transition to decimal currency in 1966, so it’s at least 55 years old. How many things do you own, purchased for such a small sum, which are capable of giving such pleasure after so many long years?

As a young undergraduate and in the latter years of my secondary schooling, when I came to take Literature (with a capital L) very seriously, I sometimes wondered how best one might defend Durrell’s books, for which I retained a great affection, on grounds of literary merit. “Literary merit” was a phrase more often heard in those days than today.

Digression: Some years ago the National Archives had an exhibition about censorship in Australia, and from it I learned that in the latter years of wholesale censorship in Australia the censors were as much concerned about “trashy” literature (mostly sensational crime fiction) corrupting our taste as about pornography corrupting our morals. It smacks of the Nazi proscription of “degenerate art”.

Durrell was deemed pretty wholesome, and very suitable for young readers. But he was definitely not highbrow. So what are his literary merits? There is little doubt in my mind that I would struggle to tell a story half so well. His writing is deft and economical, and holds the readers attention. In short, Durrell is a gifted communicator with an infectious enthusiasm for his material. If I had to name just one thing about his writing that I think marks him out as really exceptional, and even as a boy I paid him the tribute of borrowing from him when writing in class, it is his gift for simile:
“a spider will step out of its own skin and walk away, leaving a transparent, microscopically exact replica of itself, ** fragile as wood ash **, lying there to be destroyed by the wind” (p.164, my asterisks)
or:
“[the paddler] would inch the canoe over the polished surface of the water ** as slowly and smoothly as a snail on a window pane **.” (p.156)

Literary merit aside, the books are fun, always a bit of a romp, though in my critical old age I’m inclined to think Durrell’s sense of humour a bit facile. Something that did please me, and I was anticipating that I might be disappointed in this, is that I see no trace of the old British racial arrogance about him. He is a natural cosmopolitan who sees people, whatever their race or station in life, as individuals to be judged on their personal merits. That, I suppose, is the benefit of a childhood spent in Corfu, sheltered from the influence of insular British attitudes. I was born in London, and spent half of my formative years in England, so I think I’m entitled to state such an opinion.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Three Singles to Adventure takes us to South America, where we meet the sakiwinki and the sloth clad in bright green fur; where we can hear the horrifying sound of piranha fish on the rampage, or learn how to lasso a galloping anteater.

"In this entertaining account of his expedition in search of rare animals, Gerald Durrell once again divines the character of the animals with the same clear, humorous and unsentimental eyes with which he regards those chance human acquaintances whose conversations in remote places he often reproduces in all their devastating and garbled originality."
~~back cover

The author is still honing his sly writing skills, but the book is most entertaining nevertheless. I particularly enjoyed the bit about capturing the giant anteater -- our local zoo had one just like it and it was intriguing the difference between the wild one and the poor soul who spent his days pacing around his enclosure with an air of despondency.

As usual, wonderful descriptions of unfamiliar regions, and the difficulties of capturing wild animals and then having to keep them corralled and then home to England. Certainly not a life style for the faint of heart!

[Mariangel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best part of the book is the beautiful descriptions of all the habitats of the Guyana and its colorful animals. The sands by the coast, the rivers and channels covered in flowers and surrounded by think vegetation and many birds... Some of the stories about how they obtained their favorite animals are very funny.

[Mariaan Du Plessis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such beautiful English

[Christopher Conn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book about Durrell's journeys collecting animals in Guyana for British zoos. He and his crew collected hundreds of animals but the book focuses on a few particular expeditions around the village of Adventure (thus the name). It is beautifully written and the stories about the animals are wondrous and often funny.

[Krysta B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sort of like a Wooster in British Guiana - what's not to love?

[Pooja Pimputkar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gerald Durrell's books are "happy place".

This book has a lot of absurd funny situations but the one where they scandalise toads and courting couples has to be the winner.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 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.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Vicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three Singles to Adventure is an account of Gerald Durrell's animal collecting expedition to British Guiana (now Guyana) in the 1950s. One of his first books, it lacks the strong messages of conservation present in his later works but still conveys his sense of wonder at the natural world with all his characteristic humouor.

Imagine puttering up a jungle river in a dugout canoe just as dusk is falling, heading home after a satisfying collecting trip to a remote village. Something brushes your ankle in the bottom of the hull, which closer inspection appears to be the tail end of a large electric eel slithering down the boat after escaping from the basket it was kept in. Moving out of the way quickly and shouting a warning to your fellow passengers, a whole chain of chaos ensues. The canoe tips and rocks precariously as everyone avoides the eel; a pygmy anteater in the bow, known locally as a thank'ee god, throws his hooked claws around making protestations to the heavens; a colleague stumbles about, catching his balance by accidentally grabbing a pimpla-hog, a porcupine; the porcupine then tries to escape by climbing the tallest person in the canoe to sit on their head. And in the melee, the prize of the trip, the electric eel slips overboard and makes his escape into the darkenss. You could only be with Durrell.

[Rita · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have several Durrell books Rosemary has given me, she likes them. I think this is the first I have read of his.
He is certainly a skilled writer.

The content is shocking -- plenty of people continue to hunt wild animals to sell to zoos today, but I guess publishers would hesitate to sell stories about this politically incorrect activity.

But in 1954, when this book was published, the Great White Hunter was not yet politically incorrect. Durrell seems to have dealt with local people quite humanely and with an unusual degree of self-reflection, and it is interesting to read between the lines and imagine how he comes across to those he meets.
Here's an upper-class gentleman with bags of money to pay people to take him collecting, to build all kinds of cages for his animals and food to feed them. But he certainly gets his hands dirty in catching animals himself, and caring for them. Impressive.

I am glad today's tendency is more towards photographing wild animals than catching them, but there is no denying Durrell makes for a good read.

[Malcolm Frawley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having been re-alerted to this author by the recent TV series The Durrells I came across a 1965 edition of this book for $2 somewhere & snapped it up. As expected, it was both entertaining & educational as Durrell & his gang track down & capture animals in British Guiana in the 1950s that are then shipped to zoos around the world. How you feel about zoos might well colour your own reaction to Durrell's work but regular childhood expeditions to Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney opened up a life-long fascination with wild-life for me. Durrell clearly loves & respects creatures that range from sloths to electric eels &, in a time before the technology David Attenborough now regularly introduces to us existed, studying animals in captivity might have been the only option available to learn more about them.

[Helen Cooley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully and amusingly written, as with all Gerald Durrell's books. This tells the story of an adventurous animal collecting expedition to British Guiana in 1950.

Highlights including an overly affectionate bird named Cuthbert, an unwitting swim in piranha infested waters, the birth of baby pipa toads, meeting the endearing pimpla hog and many more. Locations such as the lily covered creeks sound like a natural paradise for wildlife lovers. All are beautifully described.

As with others of Durrell's animal collecting books, the modern reader may have mixed feelings. It is hard not to feel great sadness for all the wild creatures he collects, eg, the giant anteater being lassoed and brought from its natural savannah to a zoo in England. However also knowing the conservation legacy of people like Durrell has saved some animals from extinction.