Nevil Shute’s most powerful novel—a bestseller for decades after its 1957 publication—is an unforgettable vision of a post-apocal...
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May 17, 2010
karen
rated it: 
it's the most pleasant apocalypse ever!there is war! there are bombs! and everyone in the southern hemisphere knows the rest of the world is dead dead dead and they are just waiting for the radiation to drift downwards where they will succumb to vomiting and diarrhea and weakness and eventual death. let me repeat: this is known. and so what do they do to prepare themselves? not a whole lot. they buy some presents for children they know are already dead in other parts of the world (yes, this mean
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38 comments
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(47 people liked it)
May 12, 2010
Aerin
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I like reading sci-fi and spec-fic from the past. More than any historical description, these books really get at the hopes and fears of the time. Whether it's the terror that society will be destroyed by fascism or communism (1984, Anthem), or the excitement of the dawning space age (early Asimov and Bradbury), nothing says quite so much about an author's attitude toward the present as their vision of the future.
So, what did I learn about the fifties from reading On the Beach? We More...
So, what did I learn about the fifties from reading On the Beach? We More...
Apr 09, 2008
Carrie
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Hmmmmm.....probably one of the most sobering books I have ever read....plausible, poignant, post accidental apocalyptic....it left me mad at Man; mad at His stupidity; mad at His ridiculous striving after world dominance, instead of striving after world harmony.
Nevil Shute's sharply perceptive understanding of Human emotions is pure genius (I would have written 'mastery' there but I understand in some lands that word can be considered offensive....in England, it is not....however, I More...
Nevil Shute's sharply perceptive understanding of Human emotions is pure genius (I would have written 'mastery' there but I understand in some lands that word can be considered offensive....in England, it is not....however, I More...
6 comments
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(6 people liked it)
Oct 07, 2010
It's appropriate that I should review this novel on the 65th anniversary of the successful test of the first atom bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico. On the Beach is set in what was the near future to British-Australian author Nevil Shute, writing in 1957: 1963, approximately a year after World War III. The northern hemisphere has been devastated by nuclear war, and those in the southern hemisphere wait for the nuclear fallout to reach them. The story follows the lives of several Australians and one
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5 comments
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(3 people liked it)
Jun 13, 2011
Megan
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Nevil Shute’s On the Beach, originally published in 1957, is a post-apocalyptic novel which takes place in Melbourne, Australia a year or so after a nuclear World War III. This final world war was so devastating that radioactive clouds are slowly traveling the earth, and killing all people and animals in its wake. Due to some (probably not very) complicated weather and wind pattern science, Australia and it’s surrounding islands are just about the last inhabited places to be affected by the radi
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(8 people liked it)
Mar 04, 2008
Granny
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I read this book years ago and it still gives me chills just thinking about it. Seering and unforgettable.
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Aug 13, 2008
Michael
rated it: 
"It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine..."
That line from the old REM song pretty much sums up Nevil Shute's "On the Beach." The world has ended and everyone's pretty much OK with it.
Written in the late 50's and set in the near future of the early 60's, "On the Beach" finds World War III has come and gone. The final battle was set off by a misunderstanding with the bigger nuclear powers shooting first and asking questions la More...
That line from the old REM song pretty much sums up Nevil Shute's "On the Beach." The world has ended and everyone's pretty much OK with it.
Written in the late 50's and set in the near future of the early 60's, "On the Beach" finds World War III has come and gone. The final battle was set off by a misunderstanding with the bigger nuclear powers shooting first and asking questions la More...
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(8 people liked it)
Oct 01, 2008
Michelle
rated it: 
I was struck by the down-to-earth human explanations, attitudes, and daily life of this THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO END cautionary tale.
I was surprised not to see the expected evangelist hordes or epic demolition that typically follows in such stories. A week before the last survivors' deaths, the worst complaints are the street vendors "seem to have run down." Everyone just goes about their daily lives because they can't imagine anything else. An entire society is in denial More...
I was surprised not to see the expected evangelist hordes or epic demolition that typically follows in such stories. A week before the last survivors' deaths, the worst complaints are the street vendors "seem to have run down." Everyone just goes about their daily lives because they can't imagine anything else. An entire society is in denial More...
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(2 people liked it)
Apr 25, 2010
David
rated it:
(Revisited after a 35-year interval)
One can only imagine the conversation between Cormac McCarthy and Nevil Shute.
Written in 1957, at the height of the Cold War, Shute also imagines a post-apocalyptic world. Nuclear war has annihilated the countries of the northern hemisphere* and the radioactive plume is working its way slowly down south, killing everyone in its path. By the luck of geography, Melbourne will be the last major city to survive.
An American subm More...
One can only imagine the conversation between Cormac McCarthy and Nevil Shute.
Written in 1957, at the height of the Cold War, Shute also imagines a post-apocalyptic world. Nuclear war has annihilated the countries of the northern hemisphere* and the radioactive plume is working its way slowly down south, killing everyone in its path. By the luck of geography, Melbourne will be the last major city to survive.
An American subm More...
May 01, 2007
Jenn
rated it:
There's no way to do any definitive research on how the world would "end" after an all-out nuclear war, but I imagine that On the Beach is pretty close to how it'd go down.
This is a hard book to pin down. It's not flashy or dynamic; we enter the book two years after the last bomb has fallen, with only about six months until the radiation clouds get to where the characters are living. There is a slow build up where we are introduced into the characters lives, and get to kno More...
This is a hard book to pin down. It's not flashy or dynamic; we enter the book two years after the last bomb has fallen, with only about six months until the radiation clouds get to where the characters are living. There is a slow build up where we are introduced into the characters lives, and get to kno More...
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(2 people liked it)
Jul 19, 2008
Maureen
rated it:
When I was young, I had a talent for finding the books that my parents tried to hide and reading them. The first time I read this book, I think I was around nine or ten. It had caused a great sensation when it first came out, leading to the building of more bomb shelters in people's basements and the like. I did not have a basement, so I dug my own bomb shelter in my back yard, fueled by the conviction that the end was near.
I thought that this was a terrifying book as a child, so More...
I thought that this was a terrifying book as a child, so More...
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(2 people liked it)
Jul 02, 2008
Anna
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This really is not a good book. It's a combination between an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel where everyone just sits around having double brandies all day (but with no sex) and the Plague(but with no gory details.) The premise, an atomic holocaust has obliterated the northern hemisphere and all of Australia awaits a radioactive cloud that is coming to kill everyone on earth in 6 month of time. The whole book is just a count down in which you get to know some of the most boring and two dimensional ch
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(3 people liked it)
Jan 15, 2009
Laura
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What I remember most about this book (from high school) is the intense discussion it sparked in my class about what you would do if you KNEW that nuclear fallout would shortly overtake your town and everyone would die, including your family.
Kill them prior to its' appearance so they won't suffer? Kill yourself? What method would you use? What about pets? Morbid, but high school kids are like that. Now that I've read it again I just find it unbelieveably scary and sad-imagine the More...
Kill them prior to its' appearance so they won't suffer? Kill yourself? What method would you use? What about pets? Morbid, but high school kids are like that. Now that I've read it again I just find it unbelieveably scary and sad-imagine the More...
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Sep 25, 2007
Lisa
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Probably the most heart-wrenching book I've read. It's the story of an all-out nuclear war. And, although Australia has been spared the bombs, the fallout is spreading and heading that way. It was so easy to deeply care about the characters as they live their final days...how they prepare...how they avoid preparation. Heavy, dark and emotional...but one of those books that envelopes you and that you never forget. I read it for the first time almost 20 years ago and it is still one of the be
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(2 people liked it)
Aug 04, 2011
This has got to be on your "read before you die" list. Most apocalyptic works are full of the downward spiral into inhumanity and gut-wrenching survivalism, but Shute's take is decidedly British. The characters all know the end is coming, they have a reasonable approximation of the timing, and yet (mostly) they go on planning and living as though there are years ahead of them. I must say, that if I have to live through such times, I;d like to do it with these staunch and decent folk
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Apr 02, 2009
Dushyant
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On The Beach, is Neville Shute’s attempt to show the world after a nuclear war that became an open possibility by the 1950s when both the US and the Soviet Union created innumerable bombs. The story is set during 1963 in Australia where the last people on earth remain alive after the destructive nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere. The four main characters in Australia represent the innocent lives that would be taken if the world succumbed to nuclear fights. Dwight Towers is an American subma
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Dec 23, 2008
Lucas
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This book was recommended after my disappointment with Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." I cannot say it was an improvement.
The characters in the novel are largely one-dimension with little contrast and their interactions are superficial and or stereotypical. John is the lifelong geek who finally gets a thrill. Moira falls for Dwight based on a few half-drunk interactions; this kind of quick connection is the kind of poorly-earned romance typically found in bad movies. Mary is More...
The characters in the novel are largely one-dimension with little contrast and their interactions are superficial and or stereotypical. John is the lifelong geek who finally gets a thrill. Moira falls for Dwight based on a few half-drunk interactions; this kind of quick connection is the kind of poorly-earned romance typically found in bad movies. Mary is More...
Jan 25, 2012
Liz
rated it:
What would you do if you only had six months to live? Unfortunately, this is a choice that some people face on an everyday basis, due to cancer or some other illness. In the case of Shute’s novel, the characters find themselves faced with a rather messy, prolonged death by radiation sickness. One of the several post-apocalyptic classics to emerge form the Cold War Era, this is a very humane, compassionate look at a group of people living out their final days in a major Australian city after a se
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Nov 19, 2011
Jane
rated it:
На Земле произошла Третья мировая война, на большинство крупных государств было сброшено около четырех тысяч атомных бомб, в живых остались лишь австралийцы, ну и так, по мелочи – в Африке и Южной Америке. Последних выживших ожидает страшная участь – через некоторое время их накроет радиоактивное облако, и люди погибнут от лучевой болезни. Надежды нет – радиация рассеется только через пять лет, нет ни средств, ни возможностей спасти мирное население. А в пригородах Мельбурна жизнь почти не измен
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Nov 11, 2011
L.danielle
rated it:
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 hem More...
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 hem More...
Sep 19, 2011
R.L.
rated it:
Haunting.
Post-apocalyptic, but not in the same way that many other books of the genre are. There isn't any mayhem or violence to speak of and just a little anarchy. Some of the reviewers of the book seem to think that it shouldn’t be taken seriously because of that; as if it's certain that in a post-apocalyptic world people would go absolutely stark raving berserk. Maybe they would.
But Nevil Shute's take on it is interesting in its own way. Instead of pandemonium, he foc More...
Post-apocalyptic, but not in the same way that many other books of the genre are. There isn't any mayhem or violence to speak of and just a little anarchy. Some of the reviewers of the book seem to think that it shouldn’t be taken seriously because of that; as if it's certain that in a post-apocalyptic world people would go absolutely stark raving berserk. Maybe they would.
But Nevil Shute's take on it is interesting in its own way. Instead of pandemonium, he foc More...
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Aug 20, 2011
Cameron
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The basic premise is that a global nuclear war has occurred, and people in the southern hemisphere (Australians, in this setting) are forced to wait for a period of about 6 months until the fallout reaches them and extinguishes all terrestrial life. The Australians as a nation decide to quietly accept their fate and, for the most part, just go about their lives as normal until they die.
Many folks list this as required reading for the post-apocalypse genre, but I found it to be borin More...
Many folks list this as required reading for the post-apocalypse genre, but I found it to be borin More...
Jun 22, 2011
Sarah
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Oh man was this book depressing. I knew everyone was going to die at the end and I knew there was no hope…I could only read a few pages at a time. And yet – I liked the book. I enjoyed how Shute showed the different reactions of people to their impending doom – some made a point to enjoy everything that was limited to them for health reasons, some tried to use up all the good alcohol so it wouldn’t go to waste, some did things they were always afraid of doing or couldn’t afford to do, some of th
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Jun 18, 2011
James
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All out nuclear war leaves the atmosphere in the Northern Hemisphere suffused with lethal fallout. Gradually, the deadly radioactivity moves south, where it kills off everyone in the Southern Hemisphere. The end. Decades ago, I tried to read this book as a teenager, and found it too depressing to finish. Maybe it was because I was young. Maybe it was because, at that time, the Cold War really could have exploded into the end of all humanity. But now, I'm older, and we are all more worried
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May 01, 2011
Dani
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This is my second end of the world book in a row, the first being The Earth Abides. This one was different in that the characters here are waiting for the radiation that will kill them. It was written in the 50s, so I found it fun and amusing, in a way, in how the characters spoke. I could visualize them in a black and white movie, speaking the dialogue as it is written.
But it was also a unique take on how people might act as they await certain doom. On the surface, it's business as More...
But it was also a unique take on how people might act as they await certain doom. On the surface, it's business as More...
Apr 05, 2011
Patrick
rated it:
A majority of Nevil Shutes novels have been just been scanned for ‘e’ readers. I first read this book in high school after seeing the movie version on television. This was a point in my life when I started realizing books and movie adaptations were two different animals. The book was much better. Thanks ‘e’ people, whoever you are – this one was definitely worth another read.
On the Beach is one of those rare books that evade categories. Science Fiction because of its backdrop (nuclea More...
On the Beach is one of those rare books that evade categories. Science Fiction because of its backdrop (nuclea More...
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Dec 16, 2010
Blake
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Imagine you are living in Australia following a global, nuclear fallout, and you are simply waiting for the radioactive cloud of death to come your way. What do you do? Well, that's the focus of this classic novel from 1957. As stated, the setting is Australia, and the story begins after the nuclear war has occurred. Shute is not the greatest writer to have ever lived, and none of his novels could be classified as "great works of art." However, the reader finds themselves reading on to
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Nov 28, 2010
Barbara
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On the Beach is a very powerful post-apocalyptic tale of the world coming to an end after an accidental nuclear war started on nothing more than huge misunderstandings. Written back in the 50's, it's message is still powerful and relevant today.
Shute's tale is set in Melbourne, Australia. It tells the story of the final months of several characters: Lieutenant Commander in the Australian navy Peter Holmes, his wife Mary, and their baby daughter Jennifer;Commander Dwight Towers, the co More...
Shute's tale is set in Melbourne, Australia. It tells the story of the final months of several characters: Lieutenant Commander in the Australian navy Peter Holmes, his wife Mary, and their baby daughter Jennifer;Commander Dwight Towers, the co More...
Aug 26, 2010
Judy
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This was one of the scariest books I have ever read. It was the #8 bestseller in 1957. In the story, there has been a nuclear war in the northern hemisphere which wiped out all the people. The characters in the book live in and around Melbourne, Australia. Due to planetary winds the fallout is gradually and relentlessly blowing south, so they all know they are doomed and will die within the next several months. (I don't know if such an outcome is scientifically correct. Comments welcome f More...
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Jul 31, 2010
Tracy
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