Rating: 
Summary: Why 'on the beach?'
Review: The book, and the movie made from it, is one of my all time favorites. It's so compelling, that you'll probably miss the one line that explains the title. Nevil Shutes anti-war classic shows us how silly we are, running after all kinds of 'things' when, in the end, what we really survive on is each others love. The premise of the book(which I won't spoil by telling you, since he eases you into it indirectly)strips away all the clutter of life in one fell swoop, and shows with crystal clarity that beautiful and simple kindness 's we show to each other are the stuff that make the world go round. Read it, read it, read it. Then rent the video, take the phone off the hook, go to the bathroom first, turn down the lights, and roll-em'!
Rating: 
Summary: Well-behaved Australians face nuclear doom
Review: This after-the-apocalypse novel from the 1950s is not action-packed, and there is mercifully little violence or sex. It is an interesting exploration of the reactions of some Australians who will be among the last human beings hit by the fallout spreading southward after nuclear devastation in the Northern Hemisphere. My husband had read this book when it came out and found it chilling and frightening, which I didn't particularly, maybe because I've read so much post-apocalypse sci fi. But also, I found an odd sort of hope in the way that some of the characters dealt with living in the face of impending death. I thought there should have been more social chaos and more extreme insanity and despair as the end came near, but the reactions of this bunch of 1960s Australian middle-class white folks did seem plausible.This book contrasts interestingly with Jacqueline Harpman's "I Who Have Never Known Men," a much more bleak, surreal, existentialist, end-of-humanity novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Shute, I've procrastinated
Review: On The Beach, was a decent book. It was very easy to follow, and the character's were just your everyday people, which helps bring the reality of the story closer to home. The story is about people living in Australia, basically waiting to die. A nuclear war had taken place in the Northern Hemisphere, and now they were waiting for the nuclear cloud from the war that was headed there way, everyone else in the world was gone. They are going to die from the radiation that is carried in the cloud, but because of the air movement, they still have a few months to live. It basically describes these peoples lives and what they do with the little time they have left. On The Beach can be slow, but it is a good book that describes the what could come of a nuclear war.
Rating:
Summary: Good but slow at times
Review: On the Beach is a marvelous novel it captures one of the greatest fears of the twentieth and the twenty-first century, nuclear war. Nevil Shute has done a great job of describing different ranges of characters. He has used single, married, and divorced characters. The basic theme of the novel was that everyone was going to die and the world as we know it will come to a devastating end. Although the theme has been used before in several novels this time it is written in a different style. Nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere has caused so much damage (radiation) that it is now slowly moving to the Southern Hemisphere who are going to be innocent victims. Mr. Shute makes sure he gets the point across that that the war has caused many innocent victims. The only flaw in this novel is that it focused too much on the military making it slow at times. On the Beach is a great fiction novel that informs the reader of the possible future.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good, slightly slow
Review: On The Beach was a good book, although I thought the characters reaction to the coming radioactive winds was unrealistic. Many just stayed at home on their porches drinking a last drink or lying in bed. I for one would be running for Tasmania and eventually Antartica (if it wasint too cold). Maybe I havent lived in one place long anough to have and regets of leaving a lifetime home. But still, you hear about the thousands of refugees from war zones, it seems unlikeley hardly anyone would run from certain, and painful, death. The story was intruiging anyway and I recommend it for a good reader (some of the English terms and styles of writing are confusing). PS: Look up the definition of a fortnight before you read this :)
Rating: 
Summary: This book was terrible
Review: This book was one of the worst books I've read. Actually I couldn't finish it. It was very slow and there was no action. Not what I was looking for in this type of book. I left it on the last plane because I didn't want to waste the space in my bag.
Rating:
Summary: A superb story, well told and riveting
Review: I've read the other reviews. First It is scientifically accurate based on verifitcation from my physicist husband. Second cutting a 120 pages, would leave you with what? Third boring? I read the story in two days, gave up a weekend, and I don't do that anymore. Now, if you read this YOU MUST read Larry Niven's Rainbow Mars collection, particularly the last story, Death in A Cage, which covers this book also. I came upon it surrendipitiously but now I recommend it highly as a great one two punch. Now to On the Beach. I did not know what the storyline was, except my husband recommended it and referred to it often. I was stunned and shocked to find out in Chapter 1 that there had been a Nuclear War started by small powers -- not China, Russia, USA but little one's like Albania in the story or Iraq, now... The spoiled child who if he can't win no one does... I find this plausible. It is well told and romantic -- very romantic and yet...If the bombs get dropped, Shute is right, it goes this way....
Rating:
Summary: Nuclear Destruction....that sucks
Review: I thought that On the Beach was a semi-decent book. One major downfall was that it was dull and boring through a good bit of the main story. Instead of 320 pages, I believe it could have been done in about 200, to make the pace of it better. It ties in nicely with our studies in that it deals with life after a world wide nuclear war. I thought it comical that it depicted the Russians as the one of the "bad guys", and it didn't even mention America as being part of the war. The ending was a let down, as everyone just kind of died off with no real plot to it, except for maybe the Moira-Dwight ordeal. Basically, it was boring from beginning to end with the occasional interesting plot twist here and there. I do not agree with the quote that "Every American should read On the Beach...", as it was not that good. I give it a thumbs in the middle, no more.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Concept
Review: It's too bad that this book suffers so much from lackluster writing. The story is moving, engaging, and heartbreakingly sad. It really makes you wonder what you'd want to do if you know there were only a few weeks left, and how you would feel as the end approached. I found it very difficult to put this book down once I had begun, and very difficult to put it out of my mind once I had finished. The characters are real and believable - very important to a novel of this sort. While it is unfortunate that the author could have used a grammer manual, this is still a book well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Great concept, somewhat listless writing
Review: On The Beach, as others have said, suffers a bit as a product of its era, not so much for the cold war stuff (which I still find chilling) but for the stilted and polite portrayal of its characters, as starched and straightforward as 50's Hollywood. It also seemed not quite believable that an entire community of people would face demise with the same orderly sense of denial and detachment; I am positive that there would be more chaos than dignity under such circumstances. None of this detracts from the building hopelessness toward the inevitable conclusion, which does benefit from the straightforward writing style. It arrives all too soon just as it would, and I found that part of the book at least to be terribly real and sad, and it stayed in my mind long after I finished. A favorite apocalyptic novel that this made me want to read again (and that I don't see mentioned in some of the top lists here) is This Is The Way The World Ends by James Morrow. This book made me cry.
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