On the Beach

On the Beach

Published:
2010-01-22
Categories:
ISBN:
9780307476982
Meeting:
FBC Recommended R2.021
Chosen by:
Gwen
Pages:
320
Language:
English
File size (e-book):
2.0 MB

Description:

Nevil Shute’s most powerful novel—a bestseller for decades after its 1957 publication—is an unforgettable vision of a post-apocalyptic world.

After a nuclear World War III has destroyed most of the globe, the few remaining survivors in southern Australia await the radioactive cloud that is heading their way and bringing certain death to everyone in its path.  Among them is an American submarine captain struggling to resist the knowledge that his wife and children in the United States must be dead.  Then a faint Morse code signal is picked up, transmitting from somewhere near Seattle, and Captain Towers must lead his submarine crew on a bleak tour of the ruined world in a desperate search for signs of life.  Both terrifying and intensely moving, On the Beach is a remarkably convincing portrait of how ordinary people might face the most unimaginable nightmare.

Author Details:

Nevil Shute Norway (1899-1960) was an English novelist and aeronautical engineer who served in the British military in both world wars and spent his later years in Australia. The author of 24 published novels and novellas, his best-known books include Pied Piper, A Town Like Alice, and especially On the Beach, set in a fictional post-atomic-war Australia. He used Nevil Shute as his pen name, and his full name in his engineering career, in order to protect his engineering career from any potential negative publicity in connection with his novels. He lived in Australia for the ten years before his death.