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Summary: One of the best novels I ever read
Review: "On the Beach" is one of the best novels I ever read. It is also the first one, that made me crying. First of all you should not give this book to very young children. They could get in panic. I never read a novel that is so fascinating as "on the Beach". Although all movies about it are [bad], the book is just great. Especially the end, is extremely horrifying. However, if you like emotional books, you have to read this one.
Rating: 
Summary: On the Beach
Review: Australian author Nevil Shute's harrowing tale of the end of the world, but not without abundant humanity, feeling, and love. Written at the height of the cold war, it's more akin to a science fact drama than science fiction or fantasy.I have not seen the 1959 movie version with Gregory Peck & Ava Gardner but do recommend the 2000 TV movie starring Armand Assante & Rachel Ward. As usual, my suggestion would be to read the book first. The latter film takes place in 2006, not in the 1960's. SideBar: Does driven technological development and an unbalanced reliance upon scientific tools lead to an individual or group mindset that playing with Pandora's Box never has irreversible consequences?
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Summary: On The Beach
Review: The book On The Beach was an exciting and intense book. It was a book on life after nuclear bombs were dropped. In this book they were dropped in the northern hemisphere. It was an intense book because you didn't know what was going to happen next. I enjoyed On The Beach because I expected something dull to happen every time I turned the page, but something completely different happened. It was enjoyable not only for it's suspense but also for the love shared between the characters. They cared for each other enough to ask them to kill themselves if the radiation got to bad. If you want to know what life would be like after a nuclear war, read this book. If you support it you will probably change your mind. This book might even improve your vocabulary. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: On The Beach
Review: If you would like to read a petrifying and breath-taking novel about the world coming to an end after a nuclear war, then read On The Beach by Nevil Shute. In this novel, Nevil Shute clearly expressed how the lives of many people would be, as they knew their time on earth would be short and their plans and dreams would never be carried out. Still they prayed and hoped of a miracle that would never come.
On The Beach has no particular level of suspense, no real thrills, and only one foreseeable way to close. The book tells a simple story about a nuclear war that has devastated the Northern Hemisphere. The characters in the story capture our attention on the reality of death. As the toxic rain moves closer and closer to the characters the world slowly comes toward an inevitable end.
Shute did an excellent job on this book even though the beginning was kind of slow. The further into the book you get, the deeper and more involved you will be. This book is very emotional and it really makes you think about the things you do in your everyday life and whether or not you are living life to the fullest.
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Summary: immensely depressing
Review: After nuclear war wipes out the Northern hemisphere, the radiation gradually creeps South, killing everything in its path. In Melbourne (at the time, the world's southernmost city), people realize they have only a few months to live, that there is no escape, and they sit and wait to die. Pretty grim. Of course, everyone is just finding ways to fill in the time and distract themselves. ... 'On the beach' has been quoted widely with regards to Australians referring to England as 'home' even though they'd never been there. It's the only time I've ever come across that phenomenon. I actually found that these 1950s Australians quite familiar and interesting: much more British than Australians nowadays, still in that stiff duty mode from the second world war, and facing certain death. I think the listless writing style was very successful in conveying the sense of despair and doom. It's a powerful novel, profound probably, and quite awful.
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Summary: No false sense of hope makes this book a winner
Review: We need more books like this one. Its tone of finality is refreshing. From the very beginning we know the world is coming to an end...at least for us humans. True, we are given some small measure of hope with the exploration of the nuclear submarine in the already deadly atmosphere of the United States. But even that is less of a hope than a tour of what is coming to the remainder of civilization huddled in Australia. If you liked this type of book read "Thinning The Herd", a new book which follows in its footsteps...ISBN 0971303207.
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Summary: one of the best english books in classes to read
Review: Basically I will keep this short and simple for all of you... the story is about basically Russia and the United States going to war and they start using nuclear weapons and soon everyone dies on earth... the book ON THE BEACH then explains what it was like for four survivers who were underwater in a submarine when this takes place come out onto the world and basically what life is like for them. They know the war is taking place so decide to stay underwater and know everyone dies... but they hear a taping noise on the radio... it was an excelent book I enjoyed every chapter of it... and for once I actually liked a book I read for my 11th grade English Class... I recomend it, its idea is great behind it and just a must have
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Summary: Stunningly powerful
Review: The literary world is full of "End of The World" books: indeed, one might even say they have their own sub-genre. Nevil Shute's classic On The Beach is generally considered the best of them, and with good reason. It takes a vastly different approach from every other book of its kind that I have seen - that is, it deals specifically with the human element. Most of the others deal with some kind of unnatural element - war, fighting off aliens. Not On The Beach. What this book does, instead, is focus on the trivial, mundane, everyday elements of people's lives - albeit in the wake of imminent disaster. The book depicts the world after a nuclear war; the events and motives of the war are never explained - which is precisely the point. Who knows what they were fighting for or over? In the end it doesn't matter. (As Roger Waters said, "Ashes and diamond/foe and friend/We were all equal/In the end") The nuclear war took place in the Northern hemisphere - the Southern hemisphere had nothing to do with it. Alas, the wind is spreading radioactive material that will eventually kill off everyone on the planet - regardless of whether or not they had anything to do with the war (a plot detail that neatly points the inherent unfairness of war, and the fact that it affects everyone - whether or not they are involved.) The story centers around a small group of people in Australia - in the Southern hemisphere, where they had nothing to do with the war, but nevertheless know that they will die soon, when the radioactive dust reaches them. The plot is very simple, basically describing the day-to-day events of the 5 main characters, and how they interact with one another. This can be very boring at times - and, indeed, the book is quite slow going at first. It takes some time to get into. You may question at first the relevance of the details Shute gives in the book - why describe the boring, mundane, everyday details of regular people's regular lives? Because that's precisely what matters. If you knew you were going to die - and when - what would you do? Perhaps you would go on doing the things that you have always done and loved - tending your garden, working around the farm - right up 'till the end. Perhaps you would succumb to vice and drink. Perhaps you would attempt to finally achieve your life-long dream that you had always put off and never quite got around to - such as racing in a Grand Prix, or becoming head of the U.S. Navy. These are the things that the characters in the book do. You either go on the same as always as if nothing had happened, or you make a headlong hedonistic dash towards the end (as Bob Dylan wrote, "Everybody is either making love/Or else expecting rain.") I applaud Mr. Shute for pulling no punches and not taking the easy way out with this book. Too often authors try to give the reader a happy ending - at the expensive of the narrative and of realism. Shute does not do this. The book ends as we always knew it had to - as we knew from the start. Much like in Romeo and Juliet, in which the same thing happens, this is the strength of the book: as the suspense builds and builds, we keep hoping and hoping (as we get more well-acquainted with the characters) that it won't end the way we know it will - and yet, it does, anyway. If Shute had not done this, it would not only have been at the expense of the book - it would have destroyed the book's very important message. One must try to remember that this book came out in 1957, a time when people considered nuclear war a very real possibility. And to write such a bleak and depressing book as this at the time when the government was telling people to build bomb shelters in their backyard, and running advertisements promoting "duck and cover", Shute really had a lot of guts. This is a book that will really tug on your heartstrings: it's a truly depressing book that will stay with you a long, long time after you read the last page. I can't say any other book has ever made me cry as this one did. It may seem boring to you at first, but trust me: stick with it. It all comes together in the end. A highly recommend essential read for anyone.
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Summary: On the Beach: Style As Metaphor
Review: Stories that deal with the the end of the world often suggest that end through the style of the author. Those who have read ON THE BEACH often complain of the deadening weight of a style that is long on sensory description but short on memorable character interaction. Yet, that is precisely the point that author Nevil Shute wants to make of his apocalyptic view of worldwide nuclear death. By the time the book begins, the plot mechanism has already been set. A nuclear war has broken out, with most of the world's major centers of population put to the torch. The reader does not see this; in fact he hears about it only second hand. The stark impression that Shute draws comes mostly from dialogue with surviving Australians, who have as yet been untouched by the clouds of killing radiation that have swept the rest of the world. Unlike other post-war dramas, this one shows the aftermath, survivors who decide when and how to react in their respective ways. The primary focus is on American submarine commander Dwight Towers, who has successfully landed his sub in an Australian port. He strikes up a relation with a local woman, Moira Davidson, and they are well aware that the nuclear clock is ticking on their lives. The immunity that Australia has had is but temporary. The radiation that has spread worldwide is now slowly infiltrating their air. The dramatic center of the book is not so much human-based, but idea-based. Dwight and Moira, and other couples in the book, carry on as best they can, but the only real choice left to all of them is when to end their lives via suicide pills before the poison cloud does that for them. It is noteworthy what they do before they take the death pills. Most simply do what they have always done, the normal mundane things that marked so much of their pre-war lives. A few do dangerous things like driving in races that produce fatalities for most of the drivers. The unspoken point that Shute makes and many readers miss is the connection between what he says and how he says it. The end of the world and all life is truly a desensitizing concept. Shute's style of excessive detail and lack of human interaction suggest the feelings of the major characters. Dwight, Moira. and the others are both physically and psychologically disconnected from one another. By the end of the novel, they are dead or dying. The gap between a still surviving Dwight and Moira is emphasized by his decision to spend his last day on earth sinking his sub with all hands aboard rather than spend that last day together. ON THE BEACH is truly a depressing novel that shows the physical interactions between the dead and dying as less important than their psychic distancing. Sometimes, the expression of fear and gloom are better understood by focusing on how the characters feel rather than on what they do. No one ever said that a writing style must be perky.
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Summary: Wonderful book--Nevil Shute's most famous if not his best
Review: After a nuclear war, radiation slowly drifts southwards, gradually killing off humanity there as it has already been killed off in the Northern Hemisphere. The end is less than a year away, yet Australians, and a few American naval refugees seek to maintain their daily lives in the face of doom, and even send an exploratory submarine northwards. The fascination of the book is watching how people react to the inevitable doom. Many just go on plegmatically, a few pretend it will never happen. Most interesting is Moira Dawson, an Australian girl who had dreamed of visiting London and Paris, and now never will, and who seeks to live what little life is left to the fullest. She learns a lesson from a stillborn romance with Dwight Towers, the submarine commander who acts as if his wife and children are alive in Connecticut. Perhaps the limitation of this book is that most of the characters simply accept their doom, presumably having come to terms with it before the start of the book. But more of a range of viewpoints might be welcome. Could you imagine the anger and frustration of teenagers under these circumstances, in the throes of adolescence without the promise of adulthood, knowing they will never have their independence. As in most of Shute's later works, there are no villians. That is welcome when so many books have paper villains for us to vicariously hate.
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