Tick Bite Fever [Paperback]

David Bennun (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 13, 2004

In this warm and very funny memoir about growing up in Kenya, where the author’s family transplanted themselves in the 1970s, there are tales of lions in the school playground; being chased by a herd of elephants; and being mugged by baboons.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A hilarious memoir...Enchanting and amazing', The Daily Mail .'Laugh out loud is an understatement...a wonderful insight into life in Africa from a two-foot high point of view, witty, touching and above all affectionate', The Press Assocation .'Tick Bite Fever itches with mordant wit - there's at least one turn of phrase per paragraph that gets among your ribs like a feather duster. An excellent memoir', Uncut Magazine .'A delight', The Guardian .'Exotic hats off to David Bennun, who has written a book full of warmth and self-deprecating humour', Word Magazine --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Born in Swindon in 1968, Dave Bennun's family moved to Zambia in 1971. In 1973 the family moved to Kenya where they lived for the next 16 years. He has worked at Melody Maker and at Loaded. He is now freelance and writes for The Guardian, Observer, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Telegraph and GQ. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Ebury Press (July 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0091886899
• ISBN-13: 978-0091886899
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,993,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #60 in Books > Travel > Africa > Zambia

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First Symptom? Serious Laughter!....., December 9, 2004

By 

John Wayne (Norcross, GA. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tick Bite Fever (Paperback)

No oxymoron that. Not in David Bennun's hands. A Brit whose family left England for Colonial Africa in his boyhood, Bennun's nature evidently never expatriated the stiff upper lip, the sharp eye for the contagiously absurd, or---and this may be Fever's greatest selling point, for it makes all the rest so possible---the palate for language as only the bellwether British wield it. Far from a pythonesque humor; you know: with simple silliness the Wont that you often wish Wouldn't? Bennun is drop-dead funny. And I don't laugh-out-loud easily. More than once, my chest having long since rounded the corner into some soundless seismic convulsing, I dropped the book on my faintly blue-feeling face from asphyxiating in bed. (The story of his Jack Russell terrier alone is worth humor's All Time list.) And I ask you: How often do any of us ever delve along a literary skill that wastes not a single sentence? You can count those masters of concise thoroughness on half the one hand you use to hold up a favorite book (or in my case, not). Bennun is as aerodynamic an author, in his own milieu, as the greatest I've ever seen: and if that makes him the Nabakov of Satire? then Vladimir--not David--it is. Damn near every utterance morphs into a garrulous gem, no sentence dispensable, most quip-laden and quotable, all culminating in chapters memorable to a one about the real Africa in David's openly unreal vantage, his own foibles always foremost, from a self-deprecating wit-in-progress. Myself?.....Never one to let the complete absense of company dampen a conversation, I'd often read things in the book over again immediately--aloud--just to share them with somebody---Anybody---me usually the handiest, splitting my own sides with disemboweling dependability. But, like the boy in the book, I too have a hard time learning my lessons. Why even now, from time to time, foolishly undeterred by my bedtime injuries I read on, headless, only to wind up again the very picture of casualty: a free arm broken over my eyes, elbow high, while alone beneath it my open mouth, wide as the search for affordable dentists, palsies off in porcine snorts, gaped like a gash so they tell me, the very wound of the proverbial Death From Laughing. So: don't say you haven't been warned........

Needless to say, David Bennun's book ends way too soon, which is to say, it ended at all, and, Endorphin-addiction being what it is, sent me hunting the world wide web for the guy when all else failed. Now I DID locate a superb skill-set-exemplary article he penned about ITN's anchor-siren Daljit Dhaliwal meeting her prime american fan David Letterman, on air, that may still be available on-line, but other than that for now, alas---rein plus. Nevertheless, Bennun here is a fever worth catching, but only if you can stand the symptoms. Happy breathing.......

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars He brings Africa to you, June 13, 2006

By 

Tribal Nurse (Santa Barbara) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tick Bite Fever (Paperback)

I laughed and laughed, David Bennun really brings Africa back. He just knows people and the world you live in when you are there. I love Zambia and Kenya, and he just made it alive again. Thanks for the great read, and I won't sell mine!

5.0 out of 5 stars A fever that never leaves you., July 2, 2011

By 

Suradit (Thailand) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tick Bite Fever (Kindle Edition)

This is a memoir of a childhood spent in several countries, but mostly in Kenya. I`m drawn to the memoirs of people who lived in Africa because it helps me to relive an important part of my life, now left behind and for which I have frequent bouts of homesickness. I was especially drawn to this book because the author lived [briefly] in Zambia and he had suffered from "Tick Bite Fever," both of which stirred memories for me.

He didn't stay long in Zambia but his reminiscences of Kenya still resonated for me and I found it a good read, highly entertaining and evocative. His sense of humor made the book all the more enjoyable and on several occasions caused me to laugh out loud, which is not something I do all that often when reading.
On the other hand, at times his frequent resort to hyperbole fell flat and was over-stretched: "... khaki-clad figures sneaking out of the school gate at a rate to rival Albanian asylum seekers making a dash for the Chunnel," being one example.

He also at times became somewhat bogged down in cataloguing every last detail of events that didn't really warrant such attention and left me flipping pages to skip to the next part of the story.

Nonetheless it was a good read. Surviving Africa is no mean achievement even if it is only due to random good luck. It is probably best survived by those who can find humor in the trials and tribulations that seem never ending ... at least in retrospect. One of his final comments, "I don't think I could go back now," definitely struck a chord. I found it very difficult to leave, I frequently feel a need to reconnect, and yet I agree that I don't think I could go ever really go back again.