Scan barcode
ben_r's review against another edition
4.0
Great book if you have an interest in foreign travel on your own, often unconventional, terms. Anything dealing with India will fascinate me. And if there is a journey involved, even more so.
caroparr's review against another edition
3.0
Not one of his best, because there are many longueurs as they try to find boats, get stuck for the 63rd time (literally) or spend hours and hours waiting for trains, but I found these bits fairly entertaining, too. He and his wife are good company.
vasha's review against another edition
3.0
This is an account of the author's journey (accompanied by his long-suffering but also adventurous wife) down the Ganges in 1963, in a series of small boats. Newby's a humorist, and one of his favorite tropes is likening something he sees to a pedestrian English sight like a hesitant bather on a pier, or "a party of revelers pausing to wonder where to go next", or whatever. That's effectively funny. I didn't expect much deep insight from this account of travelers passing by people and societies they could barely communicate with, and indeed it's more amusing than anything, but I was interested in Newby's recollections of being posted there with the British Army just before independence. Plus, he sometimes finds a lot of beauty in the river.
More...