Malaria Dreams

This is just the book to read on a long flight in economy class. Any delays and discomforts you have to put up with will fade by comparison with what Stevens experienced. It's a hilarious account of travels in Central and West Africa. (incidentally at that time, the 1980's, Algeria was relatively safe). Africans might have a legitimate gripe with the way they are portrayed but most comic travel books tend to portray the inhabitants of a country as childish or incompetent. Read Dickens's "American Notes." I would have liked to hear the author's ideas on why things are as they are in Africa. Whose fault is it? What can be done? What will happen in future? This may be complaining that he has not written a different book but I see that he is, according to the jacket a "political consultant" so he must have some opinions.

This book is about how an American guy ends up driving from the Central Africa Republic all the way to North Africa. Suffice it to say that everything that can go wrong does. I've had a lot of personel experience in Cameroon and I can say that everything that happened to this guy didn't sound that far fetched. It is laugh outloud funny. I just couldn't put it down. If your looking for a funny read, then this book is for you. This is a fun book, it is not meant to be some philosophical consideration about the status of Africa or anything like that. There are several excellent and very seroius books about Africa, but this is not one. This book is an adventure story. It is hilarious, I was kind of sad to finish it. It made me want to go back to Africa and they my hand at driving from Capetown to Tunis. Don't miss it.

this was my first venture into Stevens world and I became hooked. immediately i sent it to a friend with directions to send to a long list of friends and then it was lost in the shuffle. years later, after forgeting Stevens name, i stumbled upon Feeding Frenzy in a sale rack on the sidewalk of some snooty "private" library in Midtown and it was like meeting up with an old boyfriend on a ferry in a foreign place. After the discovery I went immediately to the bookstore and bought Malaria Dreams and The train. Malaria is of course great. it's the "i'm laughing out loud and i don't care what you think" kind of thing. it feels like the story is being told to you over coffee from a friend instead of a paperback you are experiencing alone. read it and then Feeding Frenzy.... my next pet will be a golden retriever named Henry. I guess you could say Stevens has at least one groupie.

I have travelled more than the average and as a result, most of my reading tends to be travel guides and the travelogues of others. "Malaria Dreams" easily ranks as my favorite. Most travellers to the third world and particularly Africa will appreciate the truth in the stories which Mr. Stevens tells. I have lent the book to at least 15 other people and only one has not enjoyed it (he had lived in Africa for a number of years and said it was just too real for him to enjoy). I am now on my third copy of the book--the first I lent and never got back, and the second I passed on to some friends who were starting their second cross-Sahara trip. If I ever get around to writing about any of my trips, I hope that I can retell the story in as engaging and humorous a way as Mr. Stevens has.

This is a story on HOW one travels in Africa. Some stories Stevens paints may sound outrageous or outlandish, but that's exactly how it is in Africa. Experienced in traveling and living in this fabolous continent, I can only say "welcome to reality". The author has a very humorous style of telling wild tales of African Bureaucracy and logic as encountered during their misfortunate trip through the Sahara. I smiled my way through the book that I hardly could put down. The tales are so real (as anyone will testify who has been there) that it rocks the reading chair of anyone getting into the book. Don't read the book, if you are planning your first trip to Africa but read it if you want to immerse yourself in real African mentality, shrewdness, and irrationality held together by a humor hard to resist.