The key to Newby's success is he writes straight prose, straight as an arrow, then without warning, slips in a sidebar, related yet not related, that just catches you with no alternative but to set the book down, and laugh. I’m only adding this note because I recently re-encountered that wonderful incident Newby tells against himself where they happen to meet Wilfred Thesiger, the legendary solo explorer of the Middle East; and I’d recently read in Among the Mountains that Thesiger wrote of the same incident (and how very English for the two to meet like that!) I was heavily involved on all fronts: with mountaineering outfitters, who oddly enough never fathomed the depths of my ignorance; possibly because they couldn’t conceive of anyone acquiring such a collection of equipment without knowing how to use it…” This travelogue has some of the best anecdotes you could ask for. Misadventures galore. What were they thinking? Two out-of-shape pasty-pale gits thinking they could just stroll up the sides of Mt Everest? It's a wonder they weren't killed. Bingham, James; Brooksbank, Quentin; Wynne, Mark (2012). "A Short Winter in the Hindu Kush" (PDF). British Mountaineering Council . Retrieved 23 April 2013.

Wieners, Brad (1 January 2003). "The 25 (Essential) Books for the Well-Read Explorer". Outside magazine. Archived from the original on 30 May 2013 . Retrieved 4 April 2013. This was entertaining, although maybe a little too long and detailed, and definitely slightly dated in its attitudes (although not unbearably so). Newby begins with an anecdotal description of his frustration with life in the fashion business in London, and how he came to leave it. Before falling asleep, having long since lost all sense of time, I looked at the calendar in my diary. The date was the twenty-third of July. Only fourteen days had passed since we had set off from Kabul. It seemed like a lifetime. p.208 George, Edward Mace (23 October 2006). "Idiosyncratic travel writer from another age, and author of the classic A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush". The Guardian . Retrieved 2 April 2013.George Eric Newby CBE MC (December 6, 1919 – October 20, 2006) was an English author of travel literature.

Carless is survived by his wife and by Ronnie, the elder of their two sons; the younger, Roger, predeceased him. Thesiger invited them for a meal and to spend the night in his company. They were rather overawed and wondered what Thesiger thought of them, being so callow and inexperienced. They found out when they unrolled their mattress pads: Thesiger, who probably just hollowed-out a depression in the gravel to sleep, observed contemptuously, “God, you must be a couple of pansies”. Born and brought up in Barnes, south-west London, Newby was sent to St Paul's school, his middle-class parents, George and Hilda, no doubt intending him for a thoroughly conventional future, perhaps a notch up socially, with a safe, well-paid nine to five job and a Joan Hunter-Dunn marriage. Small indications were noted early that events might turn out otherwise. In the fifth form, he was marked out as a boy who could spot a joke at 20 yards and who revelled in self-ridicule. All his life his humour had the equivalent in music of perfect pitch. Nevertheless, after leaving school at 16, he went to work for the advertising firm, Dorland. I had the sensation of emerging from a country that would continue to exist more or less unchanged whatever disasters overtook the rest of mankind." Kari Herbert noted in The Guardian 's list of travel writer's favourite travel books that she had inherited a "well-loved copy" of the book from her father, the English polar explorer Wally Herbert. "Like Newby, I was in a soulless job, desperate for change and adventure. Reading A Short Walk was a revelation. The superbly crafted, eccentric and evocative story of his Afghan travels was like a call to arms." [34] Outside magazine includes A Short Walk among its "25 essential books for the well-read explorer", [39] while Salon.com has the book in its list of "top 10 travel books of the [20th] century". [40] The Daily Telegraph too enjoyed the English humour of the book, including it in a list of favourite travel books, and describing Newby and Carless's meeting with the explorer Wilfred Thesiger as a "hilarious segment". It quotes "We started to blow up our air-beds. 'God, you must be a couple of pansies,' said Thesiger." [41] The Swedish journalist and travel writer Tomas Löfström [ sv] noted that the meeting with Thesiger represented, in Newby's exaggerated account, a collision between two generations of travel writers who travelled, wrote, and related to strangers quite differently. [42]Hugh comes across as this mysterious, aloof, travel partner whom Newby is able to portray with gut wrenching humor. Part of the success of the book is how they play off each other. Eric Newby must have been aware of the curtain being drawn on mountain adventures in written form, so he structured his book in very different way. Instead of presenting himself and his partner Hugh Carless as mountain conquering heroes, he honestly depicts themselves for what they really were - two self-indulgent clueless men who impose themselves on locals in a poor nation. They are bullying their way to be dragged up steep mountain valleys close to the high point of their fancy - a mountain top they have not a slight chance of reaching. The account of their adventures written in this ironic self-deprecating way is like a breath of fresh air in the oxygen and imagination deprived atmosphere of mountain literature. I had searched the internet for the best travel book ever and this book showed up on almost every list. How good can a book about two guy hiking up a mountain be? Well, I found out; fantastic, mind blowing great. Rather than then returning to England, tails between their legs, they proceeded onward with a difficult climb over a mountain ridge and down into the next valley, thus passing into Nuristan. They had a number of adventures among a people so isolated that they thought Newby and Carless must be Russians, with whom they were familiar as rifle salesmen -- and so wild and incomprensible that Newby feared they must be mad. urn:oclc:867469805 Republisher_date 20120831082856 Republisher_operator [email protected] Scandate 20120825044406 Scanner scribe1.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Worldcat (source edition)