About this title: After the war is over, a radioactive cloud begins to sweep southwards on the winds, gradually poisoning everything in its path. An American submarine captain is among the survivors left sheltering in Australia, preparing with the locals for the inevitable. Despite his memories of his wife, he becomes close to a young woman struggling to accept the harsh realities of their situation. Then a faint Morse code signal is picked up, transmitting from the United States and the submarine must set sail through the bleak ocean to search for signs of life. "On the Beach" is Nevil Shute's most powerful ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: Third Printing
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Scholastic
Date Published: 1968
Description: Fair. No Jacket. First Couple Pages Coming Loose, Markings On Inside/Outside Front Cover, Corners Bumped, Covers Creased, Text Is Unmarked, Good Reading Copy. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Acceptable. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
"This book was quite possibly the most depressing book I have ever read in my entire life. It may have been due, in part, to the fact that I was working a graveyard shift at the time, typing zip codes for a living, and had no social life to speak of, but I, quite honestly, did NOT want to hear such details about life ending as we know it. I thought the details were amazingly accurate, and I profoundly LOVED the idea of innocent people dying because of someone else's war. That's always something a good peace-lover like myself enjoys. And yet... SO...MUCH...DEATH... I remember finishing the last chapter, setting the book down, and feeling depression sinking in, like that unstoppable cloud of ash and poison. And you know what? I didn't like it. AMAZING writing, however, I give the author himself 5 stars. Just... it was awful, to me!"
"This book by Nevil Shute was written at the height of the cold war and it's still meaningful today. In fact, it's so relevant that it should be required reading for anyone in power, actually it should probably be required reading for everyone on the planet. Period.
On the Beach is set in Australia, and it becomes clear quite quickly that something horrible has happened. And that horrible thing is a full out nuclear war in the northern hemisphere of the Earth. Those left in the southern hemisphere are either dead or waiting to meet their end from the slow drift of radiation heading their way. The story follows several characters through to their respective ends: Dwight, a submariner from the US, Moira, a young woman who is bitter about her life being cut short, a young couple with a baby and a scientist who chooses to spend his last few months racing a car he probably shouldn't be driving. The way that the characters choose to live their lives, even after being handed a death sentence, provides you with a little faith in the general goodness of human nature. The dignity with which they carry themselves is a nice respite on the generally inevitable bad behavior that usually takes place in post apocalyptic novels They don't start rioting and destroying things around them, they just...go on. You get to know the characters and that's what makes the ending heartbreaking, their realness really drives home that this kind of thing could happen to normal people if we aren't careful. If this book doesn't affect you, well, there's something wrong with you.
Shute's style in this book is a little wonky and some of the prose seems a little stilted. Since he wrote it in the 50's there are some words that don't ring true today, but that doesn't detract from the book at all. I watched the movie right after I read the book because I was so enamored with it, but I ended up being disappointed with it because it didn't carry the same impact. Read the book, it makes you want to be a little bit kinder to everyone in the world."
"In theory, the concept of this novel is fascinating and it's a story that definitely needed to be written, but I found the actual book very dull. The behavior of the characters was thoughtful and realistic, but the story dragged on by detailing their tedious daily lives. The ending definitely made me cry, but the characters were dull and despite the desperate background situation, the plot was uninteresting. I had a huge problem with the characterization of the women. They both seemed rather sexistly skewed. Moira was a rather hopeless girl, characterized mainly by her promiscuity. Mary was the absolute worst. She seemed to be almost mentally retarded in her obsession over her child and her inability to comprehend the most basic scientific facts. She was written as an idiotic housewife who had no way to learn information or understand the world except asking her husband. I don't know if this part of the book is just dated, but it definitely irritated me."
"I went into this book, knowing what I was likely to get; a rather frank look at the effects of nuclear war. After the northern hemisphere has been bombed in numerous places by several countries, the inhabitants of Australia are patiently waiting for the fallout to circulate down through to the southern hemisphere.
A bulk of the plot deals with the captain of a submarine, and the two or three missions out to discover whats happened in the rest of the world. However, most of the book is the day to day life of waiting to die, cut in a rather chilling, and believable way. The nastiest bits of the book are how people deal with it, and how they talk about it.
One thread of hope comes when a radio signal starts coming out of North America, and the sub and its crew are sent to investigate. Make no quams about it though, its probably not a spoiler to note that there is no happy ending in this one. Shute approaches the subject as front on, and as bluntly as it would be."
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