Rating: 
Summary: Fleetingly Amusing / Somewhat Offensive
Review: Stevens's account of a trip to Africa to drive a Land Roverfrom Bangui in the C.A.R. up to Europe (via Cameroon, Niger, Mali, andAlgeria) is like meeting an entertaining raconteur at a cocktailparty. He has lots of comic stories, and is amusing in a very breezyway, but at the end of the night as you're heading home, you realizethat the raconteur was somehow distasteful. Steven's retelling of hisencounters too often cast the African as (pick one): backwards,obstinate, childish, petulant, greedy, annoying. etc. While a certainamount of this can be likely be attributed to narrative exaggeration,and a certain amount to the enervating African bureaucracy, it alsohardly seems a fair portrayal, since Stevens doesn't seem to have anymeaningful linguistic skills. Many of his exchanges are made via histraveling partner (a young woman who is never really explained andremains annoyingly enigmatic for the entire trip), or a local who haspolished French. Most of his misadventures are predictable: themaps aren't infallible, the vehicle breaks down repeatedly, bordercrossings are difficult, there are plenty of guys with guns shakingpeople down, and so forth. As with any good travel writer, he hasplenty of self-depreciation on hand, and is quick to admit his ownmistakes, but it masks a certain smugness as well. A full third of thebook is spent obtaining a vehicle, and Steven's wraps things up ratherabruptly in the middle of the desert in Algeria. A far better tripabout driving across the Sahara and into sub-Sahara Africa is WilliamLangwiesche's Sahara Unveiled and the first section of Robert Kaplan'sThe Ends of the Earth is a more contemporary and levelheaded look attraveling in West Africa.
Rating: 
Summary: Funny as hell
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but that's about all
Review: This book is very entertaining and amusing. It is solely about traveling through countries in Africa as most travelers, that is without learning much about local customs, how the people live, what their hopes and dreams are. It is all about the author and his friend and what other white people they could hook up with when they arrived in a new town or village. It is very much written as an outsider but then it was never meant to be more than that.
Rating: 
Summary: A very disappointing book
Review: This book was a staggering disappointment to me. I have traveled to Africa seven times in the past ten years, and I have also undertaken considerable overland driving... having driven a British Rally car most of the way across the Sahara, among other trips. Seeing Steven's book and the positive reviews, I eagerly ordered it. By the end of the first thirty pages I was almost ill with anger and frustration. I don't know about the other reviewers, but this book reflects very little of the reality of the Africa which I have experienced. And heck, I lived in Nigeria, where Stevens was 'afraid' to go. Briefly put, this book is nothing more than a conglomeration of negative stereotypes about Africa and Africans. The question is... where did Stevens manage to go so wrong? It is possible that he is simply playing to popular stereotypes about Africa in order to find a ready audience. Alternately, he is very impressionable and took the ramblings of his expatriate hosts as gospel and never really got to know any Africans All too often, he looks to expatriates for "explanations" of African conditions and to Africans as a source of comic anecdotes. Don't read this book to learn about Africa. Read this book to learn just how vain, racist and isolated many (certainly not all) expatriate communities are. I know people who have lived for years in Africa, but who have rarely traveled beyond their homes or out of the circles of expats who sit in bars and make fun of Africans. They generally know very little about their new "home." Either way, this is a truly abominable book -- right down there with David Lamb's _The Africans_ on the list of books by people who have been to Africa and not really come to understand a thing.
Rating:
Summary: A very disappointing book
Review: This book was a staggering disappointment to me. I have traveled to Africa seven times in the past ten years, and I have also undertaken considerable overland driving... having driven a British Rally car most of the way across the Sahara, among other trips. Seeing Steven's book and the positive reviews, I eagerly ordered it. By the end of the first thirty pages I was almost ill with anger and frustration. I don't know about the other reviewers, but this book reflects very little of the reality of the Africa which I have experienced. And heck, I lived in Nigeria, where Stevens was 'afraid' to go. Briefly put, this book is nothing more than a conglomeration of negative stereotypes about Africa and Africans. The question is... where did Stevens manage to go so wrong? It is possible that he is simply playing to popular stereotypes about Africa in order to find a ready audience. Alternately, he is very impressionable and took the ramblings of his expatriate hosts as gospel and never really got to know any Africans All too often, he looks to expatriates for "explanations" of African conditions and to Africans as a source of comic anecdotes. Don't read this book to learn about Africa. Read this book to learn just how vain, racist and isolated many (certainly not all) expatriate communities are. I know people who have lived for years in Africa, but who have rarely traveled beyond their homes or out of the circles of expats who sit in bars and make fun of Africans. They generally know very little about their new "home." Either way, this is a truly abominable book -- right down there with David Lamb's _The Africans_ on the list of books by people who have been to Africa and not really come to understand a thing.
Rating: 
Summary: This isn't paradise
Review: This book, first of all, is not the typical "vacation book" one may purchase to motivate themselves with tales of lovely places and experiences to relish on your long awaited exotic South African adventure. It should be acknowledged that this is a tongue in cheek review of either an ignorant gentleman, or an educated travel writer delivering just what the reader loves to read. Taken too seriously, the book is offensive. Taken too literally, one can barely believe anyone so STUPID would undertake an assignment such as the author does with no preparation whatsoever. Taken modestly, with appreciation for the genuine spirit of all people, one can easily see the unique capacity the African people have to live life and share generously with strangers passing by. The endemic frustrations of travel are mirrored constantly by Mr. Stevens. In comic reproductions, it is recalled for the benefit of the reader, of course. The stories are hilarious and bittersweet. Many times I relished the fact that I was home and not experiencing the agony he was. Many more times, I assured myself that I would never subject myself to such unprepared punishment. But, this is what titillates a travel reader, experiencing a travel writer's life in the insured lounger of one's insured home. I appreciate those that cast their fate to the winds, and allow their adventures to take shape according to chance. It was just such opportunities that the author encountered. Unexpectantly, and often at times of great distress, he and his companion were invited into the townspeople's homes. Later, after being fed, bathed and liquored, solid friendships formed, and the true spirit of traveling in Central Africa was appreciated.
Rating:
Summary: This isn't paradise
Review: This book, first of all, is not the typical "vacation book" one may purchase to motivate themselves with tales of lovely places and experiences to relish on your long awaited exotic South African adventure. It should be acknowledged that this is a tongue in cheek review of either an ignorant gentleman, or an educated travel writer delivering just what the reader loves to read. Taken too seriously, the book is offensive. Taken too literally, one can barely believe anyone so STUPID would undertake an assignment such as the author does with no preparation whatsoever. Taken modestly, with appreciation for the genuine spirit of all people, one can easily see the unique capacity the African people have to live life and share generously with strangers passing by. The endemic frustrations of travel are mirrored constantly by Mr. Stevens. In comic reproductions, it is recalled for the benefit of the reader, of course. The stories are hilarious and bittersweet. Many times I relished the fact that I was home and not experiencing the agony he was. Many more times, I assured myself that I would never subject myself to such unprepared punishment. But, this is what titillates a travel reader, experiencing a travel writer's life in the insured lounger of one's insured home. I appreciate those that cast their fate to the winds, and allow their adventures to take shape according to chance. It was just such opportunities that the author encountered. Unexpectantly, and often at times of great distress, he and his companion were invited into the townspeople's homes. Later, after being fed, bathed and liquored, solid friendships formed, and the true spirit of traveling in Central Africa was appreciated.
Rating:
Summary: Modern African Adventures - A look at Reality
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: a trip
Review: This is a very, very funny book, and true, one of the best accounts of a foreign misadventure I have read. It does end badly, though, the last 2000 miles are covered in a sentence, but until then, bravo. If you can't make it to Africa, then this book is definitely the next best thing.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for a long flight
Review: 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.
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