supercheesegirl

I absolutely loved this book. It's nonfiction, a memoir about how Mee and his family, well, bought a zoo. A rundown, algae-covered, mess of a zoo, full of aging but wonderful exotic animals. Mee, a former journalist, tells the story of how they get the mad idea in the first place, how they win the zoo over other bidders, how they spend the first few whirlwind months, how Mee's beloved wife Katherine dies of cancer, and how they all put in the hard work necessary to make the zoo viable again even in the midst of crisis and grief.

Mee, being a journalist for many years, is already a good writer. I'm betting, though, that chunks of this book might've been published elsewhere before it was a book--the editing was not entirely seamless. Overall, though, a really excellent read that kept me entertained and left me wanting more. Now I have to see if I can find the BBC2 miniseries, "Ben's Zoo", that was filmed while the family brought the zoo back to life.