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Nevil Shute
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On the Beach Paperback – February 9, 2010

by Nevil Shute (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 1,110 ratings
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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.
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  1. Print length
    320 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Vintage
  4. Publication date
    February 9, 2010
  5. Dimensions
    5.2 x 0.7 x 7.96 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0307473996
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0307473998
  8. Lexile measure
    780L
  9. See all details
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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
1,110 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the story engaging and effective. They connect with the characters and feel a connection with them. However, some readers felt the book was abridged and not the original version. Opinions differ on the writing quality, thought-provoking nature, and ending. Some found the writing style simple and easy to read, while others felt it did not speak to them. There were mixed reviews on the thought-provoking and depressing themes.

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Story qualityCharacter developmentWriting qualityThought provokingEndingPacingDated contentAbridged version
79 customers mention "Story quality"79 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the story. They find it engaging and worth reading. The author is an effective storyteller who includes several subplots. Readers appreciate the details and the unique plot. Overall, it's a hard tale that resonates with those born at some point.

"...life - to how you fill the space with the time you have left - an incredible read. I recommend it to all caregivers...." Read more

"...It is a story of people facing inevitable doom, how they cope, the values that support them, and their final pleasures...." Read more

"...Shute is an effective storyteller and includes several sub-plots (like the main mission Towers and crew are assigned) that complement the meta-theme..." Read more

"...The book was successful in providing more details and continuing the experience of the story...." Read more

15 customers mention "Character development"11 positive4 negative

Customers like the character development. They say the characters are poignant and they feel a connection with all of them. It's one of the best ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances novels that they have read.

"...Which only makes the characters feel close to you. Great, realistic, to the core type of book. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" Read more

"...I did enjoy, but not in the way I was expecting. I really enjoyed the characters despite the slow burn...." Read more

"...I initially had no sympathy for half the characters. I had trouble reading the last thirty pages of this book...." Read more

"...The characters are pretty believable...." Read more

31 customers mention "Writing quality"17 positive14 negative

Customers have different views on the writing quality. Some find it well-written and easy to read, with simple prose and descriptive language. Others feel the writing style doesn't resonate with them, is poorly written, stilted, or tight.

"...In fact, I think it reads like a screenplay. I don’t know if that was Mr. Shute’s intent, but two movies were made from his book...." Read more

"...cadences are hard to get a handle on, and he has some awkward attributive tags on his dialogue...." Read more

"...'On the Beach' is an easy read, but difficult to put down and even harder to forget...." Read more

"Although this is not a well-written book in the sense of clever prose, it is a clever plot. Shute had an idea and carried it through...." Read more

27 customers mention "Thought provoking"18 positive9 negative

Customers have different views on the book. Some find it thought-provoking and poignant, with an excellent portrayal of emotions through the eyes of the characters. Others feel the book is depressing and macabre, with a sad and misogynistic tone.

"...It is thoughtful and low-key, though the intensity of their is always there, boiling up and threatening to overcome them...." Read more

"...The advantage of such decent characters is that it is easy to empathize with them, and to care about their fates..." Read more

"This book is awful. Truly awful. Spectacularly awful. If you oppose book burning, this book will make you change your mind...." Read more

"...I have a tender heart, but this book is not emotionally manipulative in a transparent way that cheapens the effect...." Read more

20 customers mention "Ending"9 positive11 negative

Customers have different views on the ending. Some find it depressing and hopeless, with a foreshadowed ending. Others describe it as gripping, heartbreaking, and sobering, with no chance of a happy ending.

"...as a middle aged woman, the novelty and romance seems forced and somewhat contrived...." Read more

"...It is at once, sad and hopeful. It is NOT Mad Max...." Read more

"...The inevitability grinds on to the end with no chance of a happy ending." Read more

"...It is really not a sad book at all, rather it is interesting and not easy to put down...." Read more

13 customers mention "Pacing"5 positive8 negative

Customers have different views on the pacing of the book. Some find it quick and easy to read, while others feel the story moves slowly and lacks flow.

"...It was also a slow read, the author taking a great deal of time to paint a picture or develop a point...." Read more

"...This book is an easy, quick, thought-provoking and enjoyable flutter." Read more

"...The book is a bit slow compared to other things I've read, but once I got into the pacing I was hooked. The characters are pretty believable...." Read more

"...Although written many years ago, it still seems timely. If you compare the time period (mid 50's) to today, would things be different?..." Read more

12 customers mention "Dated content"7 positive5 negative

Customers have mixed views on the book's dated content. Some find it timeless and relevant today, while others say it's a bit outdated but still timely.

"...Great book, simple story, that captivates the era, the eternal hope of human kind, the inevitable fate that awaits us all." Read more

"This book felt dated and not so much a unique concept for the time, but more a window into the fears of the day. I’m not complaining...." Read more

"...It is a bit dated but in a refreshing retro kinda way. My only gripe would be is the saddness theme throughout the entire book...." Read more

"Relevant today, as it was when written in the 1950s. The writing style did not speak to me, but the plot line kept me reading." Read more

10 customers mention "Abridged version"0 positive10 negative

Customers find the abridged version of the book unsatisfactory. They say it's an edited and not the original version.

"This book is awful. Truly awful. Spectacularly awful. If you oppose book burning, this book will make you change your mind...." Read more

"...As others have noted, the kindle version is *not* the original manuscript...." Read more

"Actually, this was the wrong book.....I wanted the one about voting qualifications ....and that turns out to be "In the Wet"...." Read more

"...This is a severely abridged and edited version of the book, I guess for people who only did five or six grades of school...." Read more

The struggle of accepting a near end of it all.
4 out of 5 stars
The struggle of accepting a near end of it all.
A patient at work recommended this book. I had never heard of it, but his description made it seem like I would enjoy it. I did enjoy, but not in the way I was expecting. I really enjoyed the characters despite the slow burn. I think it hits close to everyone looking for the way out or “new normal” when in reality shit has changed forever. The struggle of accepting a near end of it all.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • johnthebaker
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Deep Read
    Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    I am in my eighteenth year as a HOSPICE volunteer. At my initial training all those years ago we were asked about our thoughts on death and dying as a process. We created art and we were asked in a round circle to talk through our views and express ourselves. I explained that I thought ON THE BEACH, having just finished reading it for the first time earlier in the year, was an incredible treatment of the journey we all take as we approach the end. No long face here - we celebrate our comings and our goings - just a 'what I see' take on it.

    In the story - the world is ending - nuclear war has come and gone killing off most of the planet and the toxic cloud is circling the globe and killing everything in its path. At the bottom of the globe - Australia is the last haven - but the clock it ticking - the cloud approaches and they know the date and time so it's no secret. From choosing how you exit this life - to how you fill the space with the time you have left - an incredible read.

    I recommend it to all caregivers. Put it on your list of contemporary classics and 'must reads'.
    24 people found this helpful
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  • Ray F
    5.0 out of 5 stars A 1957 post-apocalypse story still so very relevant
    Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic story written by Nevil Shute in the 1950’s, at the height of the Cold War. It is a story of people facing inevitable doom, how they cope, the values that support them, and their final pleasures. It is thoughtful and low-key, though the intensity of their is always there, boiling up and threatening to overcome them. It is at once, sad and hopeful. It is NOT Mad Max.

    The driving situation, and principal antagonist, in On the Beach is the aftermath of nuclear war. In a brief introduction, Mr. Shute provides the background of a nuclear war having snuffed out all life in the northern hemisphere and the radiation now moving slowly south. His story focuses on a few survivors in Melbourne, Australia who are waiting for the inevitable. How they handle that waiting drives the story.

    Mr Shute’s prose is simple, making this book an easy read. In fact, I think it reads like a screenplay. I don’t know if that was Mr. Shute’s intent, but two movies were made from his book. But then, the easy prose does highlight the common lives of the characters as they face an uncommon horror. Taken that way, the writing emphasizes the story’s everyday elements much as the writing in McCarthy’s The Road emphasizes that story’s bleakness. On the Beach is not bleak, though it is sad.

    The characters are depicted as was common for popular storytelling of the time—square-jawed, heroic men and brave, supporting women. Mr. Shute goes beyond these stereotypes, though, by placing them in a situation that heroics and personal grit can’t save. That point is brought out in several ways, one of which is the general cluelessness about where the nuclear war came from and why. Even the military men don’t understand it. As the submarine captain says:

    ‘I’d like to read a history of this last war.’ said the American. ‘I was in it for a short time but I don’t know a thing about it. Has anybody written anything?’

    And so the inevitability of death is aggravated by the senselessness of it. It is this theme that makes this story, in my opinion, so very relevant.

    A modern version of this novel would be longer. The action does span the globe in that the submarine travels far and wide over the northern hemisphere checking war damage and radiation levels. Mr. Shute abbreviates all that. Today it would probably be expanded into subplots that switched between the submarine and the folks back home in Melbourne. I can even imagine the introduction of a political aspect that could make the story a thriller. All that would be a detriment to the storytelling, however, if it took away from the dynamic of people facing the end of everything.

    In these days when political leaders push for war and consider nuclear exchanges “winnable,” On the Beach makes its subtle point: common, everyday people suffer for the insane actions of their shadowy rulers. Such suffering coming from nuclear war would likely be worse than Mr. Shute imagines, but his point is well made that it is the final result of unbridled ambition and greed empowered by doomsday weapons.
    9 people found this helpful
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  • GDP
    4.0 out of 5 stars Melbourne, 1963: Shute's "hollow valley"
    Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    Nevil Shute's 'On the Beach' imagines mankind on the very verge of utter apocalypse, with only the population of southern Australia temporarily surviving the effects of a colossal nuclear war that has already extinguished human life in the Northern Hemisphere. Lethal levels of radioactive fall-out are spreading throughout the Southern Hemisphere and the characters have "maybe" three months to live when we are introduced to them, their life span dependent upon wind patterns and personal choices.

    Commander Dwight Towers, a U.S. submarine captain is the central character around whom Shute spins the intertwined stories of a ship's officer Peter Holmes and his wife Mary (along with their newborn); Moira Davidson, a pretty young woman; Moira's cousin John Osborne, a scientist/race car enthusiast; and a collection of other related persons in Melbourne (c. 1963) as they anticipate the extinction of man and, necessarily, their own deaths.

    The novel begins with an epigraph from T.S. Eliot's 'The Hollow Men', in part: "We grope together/ And avoid speech/ Gathered on this beach of the tumid river ... This is the way the world ends ..." A close reading of the poem will likely cast a distinct interpretation of the novel, different from the "facing the end of the world with a stiff upper lip" reading.

    Like the "hollow men" of Eliot's poem, the characters of Shute's 'On the Beach' confront mortality together, and yet alone. Their stories provide a range of choices (overwhelmingly influenced by deeply ingrained habits): from the path of duty and faithfulness to family, a final fling at a life's goal and the opportunity for grand achievement, or a good-faith effort to properly exhaust the club's supply of port!

    Published in 1957, 'On the Beach' recalls the immanent danger nuclear holocaust represented then (it continues to exist, its just that we have become inured to it), but also retains a certain civility in its representation of the Armageddon. We are not vividly told the details of horror and destruction, nor does the book dwell on the primitive behaviors modern cinema has conditioned us to expect under the circumstances. Although there is mention of those who abandon themselves to drinking or despondence in their final months, these portrayals are brief and remain on the periphery. Decency ... how quaint!

    The advantage of such decent characters is that it is easy to empathize with them, and to care about their fates (and to realize they represent the bulk of modern humanity). Shute is an effective storyteller and includes several sub-plots (like the main mission Towers and crew are assigned) that complement the meta-theme of confronting mortality.

    The quiet decency of the characters also serves to better relate to the "hollow men" of Eliot's poem. The characters largely occupy themselves with routine activities, while dwelling upon an imagined future that denies the pending end. Their daily activities mask their fundamental passivity. They await their certain death like the "hollow men" in the poem: "We whisper together/ Are quiet and meaningless/ As wind in dry grass/ Or rats' feet over broken glass/ In our dry cellar."

    These are not persons who, in Dylan Thomas' words, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" or, in Eliot's, resemble "Those who have crossed with direct eyes." These are ordinary people continuing their ordinary lives, waiting "on this beach of the tumid river" to be ferried across by Charon, with possibly one exception. Commander Towers sets sail into the mists, seeking to do his duty to the end and to keep a metaphysical appointment with his family, a vaguely articulated reunion in an afterlife (in doing so he retains a sense of a human soul).

    The book seems like an extended tale based upon Thoreau's words, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Both Eliot's poem and the epigram of Shute's novel end with the words,

    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper.

    'On the Beach' is an easy read, but difficult to put down and even harder to forget. In many ways its message is more haunting or unnerving than the violent telling of many imagined ends of the world.
    19 people found this helpful
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  • Amazon Customer
    3.0 out of 5 stars Dated & slow
    Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    This book is dated in many respects but I think what actually hurt the book for me was the era & culture borders. Being a late 20th century American I could not relate to the world of a 1950 Australia. Many of the terms & phrases used I had to guess at their meaning & that unfortunately detracted from the book. It was also a slow read, the author taking a great deal of time to paint a picture or develop a point.
    Frankly I never finished it only making it about 75% through before I gave up on it.
    3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Carol G
    5.0 out of 5 stars On The Beach
    Reviewed in Canada on July 18, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    I have loved this book since I was young. My copy disappeared. I have read it many times, which I don't usually do. Thank you for replacing it for me!
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  • kenneth moore
    5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant book
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 12, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Top class dealer😀😀
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  • Adam Daniel Kis
    5.0 out of 5 stars Edizione vintage bellissima per un capolavoro
    Reviewed in Italy on June 4, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    Il contenuto di questo libro è fuori di testa, una guerra nucleare ha distrutto mezzo mondo e gli eventi vengono raccontati dagli occhi di persone comuni che devono sopravvivere.
    L'edizione Vintage è di buonissima fattura, materiali ottimi e stampa vecchio stile.
    Report
  • Fritz Fahrner
    5.0 out of 5 stars Was passiert noch einem weltweiten Atomkrieg
    Reviewed in Germany on February 27, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Der dritte Weltkrieg ist gerade vorrüber und die gesamte nördliche Hälfte der Erde ist tot und unbewohnbar. Lediglich in Australien, Neu Seeland und Südafrika haben Menschen überlebt. Doch auch deren Zeit läuft ab, denn der radioktive Fallout verbreitet such über die gesamte Welt. Nevill Shute beschreibt das Schicksal mehrerer Personen und ihre Vorbereitung auf den sicheren Tod in einer ungemein beklemmenden Weise. Merke: Dieses Buch wurde bereits 1957 geschrieben.
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A must read
    Reviewed in Australia on November 10, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    I first read this novel as a teenager, forty years ago. Too re-read it today left me as profoundly impacted as I was back then. Such a powerful book, yet so easy to read and difficult to put down. And prescient too; replace nuclear war with climate change.
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