I can’t change anything out there, but I CAN continue with what I am here to do. She looked at me incredulously and exclaimed, “But we may be at war tomorrow!! We may all be dead!” I thought about her question and replied, “But we may NOT be at war, and if we are not, I will certainly have to take that exam. One of them turned to me and asked with great urgency, “What are you going to do?” I answered that I was going to study for the Sociology exam I was scheduled to take in the morning.

Many of my companions were openly crying and beginning to despair. Afterwards I soberly rode the elevator up to my room from the dorm lounge where so many girls had watched and listened to grave and frightening announcements. I was in college at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and vividly remember the sense of urgency I felt after President Kennedy’s now-famous speech where everything-my future and that of the entire world-was on the line. Contemporary readers may find their behavior implausible, but having grown up in the post WW II era, I see this as congruent with the values and character of that period. They clung to, or discovered, what meant most to them in their lives and continued to carry on in the face of the certain destruction of the human species. What struck me most from this most recent experience with the novel is the complete decency and sense of duty its characters displayed as they waited for a deadly inevitable cloud of radiation from nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere to reach them in southern Australia. Now, after a lifetime, I listened to the audiobook. I first read it while in high school and then again some time later. His books are based on his own wartime and aircraft industry experiences.This book profoundly influenced much of my life. He flew his own aircraft to Australia to research On the Beach, before settling there permanently. He served in both world wars and was a commander in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in World War II, working on secret projects. Nevil Shute worked as an aeronautical engineer at Vickers before setting up his own airship company. Commander Dwight Towers and his Australian liaison officer are sent to the coast of North America to discover whether a stray radio signal originating from near Seattle is a sign of life.

An American nuclear-powered submarine has found its way to Australia where its captain has placed the boat under the command of the Australian Navy.

Darwin is a ghost town, and radiation levels at Ayres Rock are increasing. A year on, an invisible cloak of radiation has spread almost completely around the world. Australia is one of the last places where life still exists after nuclear war starts in the Northern Hemisphere.

On the beach book nevil shute