Publisher's Weekly
A BBC television series based on Durrell's book The Amateur Naturalist features the author and his wife, Lee, as narrators. After a year's work on that program, covering 49,000 miles, the film crew had learned a lot of natural history, and Durrell had a new appreciation of filmmaking. This story of the journeys is vintage Durrell: breezy and entertaining as he recounts misadventures and the problems of filming wild animals, serious in his plea for conservation. The Durrells' travels took them from the English countryside to New York City, from the Shetland Islands to South Africa, to the rain forest of Panama and Arizona's Sonoran desert, to the Canadian Rockies and the island of Corfu. The author's fans will be delighted with this one. Illustrations. Foreign rights: Curtis Brown.

Library Journal
How To Shoot an Amateur Naturalist recounts the jolly misadventures of Gerald Durrell, his wife Lee, and their TV crew as the entourage trotted the globe filming the BBC series The Amateur Naturalist , based on the Durrells' similarly titled book. Unlike the TV tie-ins that rehash their programs' scientific content, How To Shoot . . . takes a lighthearted peek behind the scenes to show nature deviating from the director's script. When tent caterpillars failed to infest an otherwise nature-filled vacant lot, the crew incurred the wrath of New York's 87th Street Block Association by importing some. No falling autumn leaves? Director Jonathan Harris coped: he collected sacks of the already fallen and had them thrown from the trees. General readers who enjoy nature shows and who like Durrell's many other books should enjoy this, too. Laurie Tynan, Huntingdon Cty. Lib., Pa.