The Overloaded Ark

Gerald Durrell, director and owner of Jersey Zoo, was internationally famous for his amusing books about collecting wild animals. The Overloaded Ark. , his first, remains his funniest book. It describes an expedition to the remote territory of the Cameroons in West Africa, before independence. ''A delightful book. You can feel his bush-shirt sticking to his back. Bagging a monitor, smoking out a Pangolin (scaly anteater), celebrating the capture of the rare Angwantibo (small lemur), bird liming for Giant Kingfishers on the warm, milky waters of Lake Soden: he communicates every detail of his experiences with just the right degree of zest. '' New Statesman.