On the Beach in Aussie Readers

Jan 29, 2020 Brenda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: arc, dystopian, own-read, aussie-authors, sent-by-publisher, 2019-release, reviewing-by-request, post-apocalyptic

Peter Holmes was a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Australian Navy and was soon to join the USS Scorpion as a liaison officer under an American submarine captain, Commander Dwight Towers. Peter lived on a farm just outside Melbourne with his wife Mary and their baby daughter Jennifer. Since the radioactive particles from the nuclear bombs of WWIII had started drifting across the earth, communities in the northern hemisphere had been wiped out. The southern hemisphere had quickly followed, and ...more

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Oct 28, 2010 Tien rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: australia, australian-author, dystopia, snakes-ladders

A Post Apocalyptic world set in the 50s – how funky is that?! We have got nuclear bombs being dropped all over the place and the world is dying slowly from nuclear radiation.

This book is mostly set in & around Melbourne, one of the most southern metropolitan city and therefore, due to wind direction, one of the last to die. The story opens on New Year’s Day with the expected TOD (Time of Death) being sometime in September. We follow a number of characters with their own way of coping with this c ...more

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Apr 08, 2019 Kathryn rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: australian-authors, fiction, reading-list-2019, aty-2019

The Daily Telegraph calls this "Shute's most considerable achievement", but I have to say that I enjoyed this the least of the Nevil Shutes I've read so far. It's an interesting concept, but rather depressing. However, I wonder if the worst happened, and there was nuclear war today, with a radioactive cloud drifting toward us, how we would approach the end in this day and age. ...more

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Mar 01, 2014 Yvonne rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Many of the 2 star and 1 star reviewers have summed up quite accurately my view of this book. It is creepily devoid of any emotion, considering the end of the world is nigh. A great demonstration of the 'British stiff upper lip'.

The men who carry on as if nothing is about to change are commendable, honourable and steadfast. The women who carry on as if nothing is about to change are unable to grasp the magnitude and are to be indulged in their denial.

There is no insight, deep or otherwise, of a ...more

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Jan 12, 2022 Catsalive rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, amw, 2023, pre-bc

One of my favourite Nevil Shute books, & possibly my best-loved post-apocalyptic tale. A nuclear war has been waged in the northern hemisphere & the rest of the world is slowly dying. The writing is tight & spare, & it doesn't spare humanity either. The 1959 movie with Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner & Fred Astaire isn't bad viewing, either. ...more

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Mar 17, 2008 Krista the Krazy Kataloguer rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-adult-fiction, read-sci-fi-fantasy

Read it as a teenager. Good but depressing.

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Dec 01, 2011 Tango rated it liked it · review of another edition

Overall I liked this book, but would not exactly say it was satisfying. I thought that the sense of inevitability about it was quite authentic, but I'm not sure that people would behave like the characters in this book did. I would imagine that most of us would feel a much greater sense of desperation. The characters in the book just resigned themselves and basically continued with their lives.

I also felt that, although set in Australia, it wasn't particularly Australian. The landscape (and wil ...more

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