Product Description
One of Nevil Shute’s most exciting novels, Pied Piper is the gripping story of one elderly man's daring attempt to rescue a group of children during the Nazi invasion of France.

It is the spring of 1940 and John Sidney Howard wants nothing more than to enjoy his fishing holiday in southern France in peace and quiet. However, the Nazi conquest of the Low Countries puts an end to that, and he is asked by friends to take their two children back to England. Crossing France with his young charges seems simple enough at first—until the Germans invade, rendering them fugitives. As Howard struggles to sneak across France, he picks up several more helpless children of various nationalities. They walk for miles in an endless river of refugees, strafed by German planes and hiding in barns at night. By the time Howard and his flock of little ones reach the Channel, his plan of escaping on a fishing boat has become utterly impossible, and in their final confrontation with the invaders, all their lives are at stake. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

highly enjoyable surprise
My aunt gave this book to me as a gift following one of her trips to England in the late '70s or early '80s. At the time, the only book by Nevil Shute I had read was "On the Beach," so I certainlywasn't expecting this highly enjoyable WWII novel with an interesting twist.No armies dueling it out in this book--instead, an old man with a heart condition trying to lead an ever-growing group of children to safety in England, with little or no assistance.That book has been read to tatters now, but my more-than-dog-eared copy will have to do unless an audio edition is released, and I'll surely read the damaged edition a few more times.The characters are every bit as memorable as the ones in "On the Beach," and this book has only a few depressing moments, when the resourceful old fellow in charge appears on the verge of playing out.

good read
This isn't really a World War II story, but a story about people. A very good read, hard to find in vintage editions, a bargain from Vintage Classics with a very attractive cover.

An old favorite to reread
Pied Piper was made into one of my favorite movies. The book is just as good. An elderly fisherman who has lost his son becomes an escort for a group of Jewish children in France just before the war.It is a simple gentle tale I enjoyed 50 years ago and still enjoy reading to my middle school class. Heroes during the war were often unlikely people and this is the tale of one of them.It was Shutes second best book after A Town like Alice to me. Buy and enjoy

Ordinary folks in unique situations... Good old Nevil Shute..
I enjoyed this Nevil Shute novel about as well as I have all his other books I've read. I've read a majority of his novels, and these all have had rich and interesting characters.I enjoyed Pied Piper, and my personal favorite is Trustee From the Toolroom.If you're a reader and you haven't read any of his work, you owe it to yourself to dive right in.Other than an English idiom or two that may take a second or two to digest, I predict you'll enjoy Shute's stories, characters, and writing style.

Still a Page Turner!
I first read this book as a child when, identifying with the children who could have been my compeers, I saw the movie at least five times. I loved the book then, and I love it now. The story is simply told, from the point of view of an elderly Englishman, whom we first meet in his London club during the Blitz. Too exhausted to move to a shelter, he begins to tell his tale to a stranger, who has also decided to sit out the raid, while the Luftwaffe's incendiary bombs fall closer and closer. The old man's story unfolds slowly as tells of a fishing holiday in the Jura--the mountains that border France and Switzerland--in the early months of 1939. The story may, in fact, unfold a bit too slowly for some modern readers who have been exposed to the terse squibs that proliferate novels nowadays, but Nevil Shute is such a skillful storyteller that he draws the reader almost unawares into the narrative, rather in the manner of an expert angler reeling in his fish.

Even though I know the story well, I could not put the book down until the very end.I was, after all these years, inextricably hooked. ... Read more

Product Description
The Breaking Wave is one of Nevil Shute’s most poignant and psychologically suspenseful novels, set in the years just after World War II.

Sidelined by a wartime injury, fighter pilot Alan Duncan reluctantly returns to his parents' remote sheep station in Australia to take the place of his brother Bill, who died a hero in the war. But his homecoming is marred by the suicide of his parents' parlormaid, of whom they were very fond. Alan soon realizes that the dead young woman is not the person she pretended to be. Upon discovering that she had served in the Royal Navy and participated along with his brother in the secret build-up to the Normandy invasion, Alan sets out to piece together the tragic events and the lonely burden of guilt that unravelled one woman’s life. In the process of finding the answer to the mystery, he realizes how much he had in common with this woman he never knew and how “a war can go on killing people long after it's all over.” ... Read more

Product Description
A rich middle-aged man finds his lonely life turned upside down when he falls in love with a pretty dance hostess and becomes involved in exposing a conspiracy to sabotage the British General Election. His dogged pursuit of the criminals will throw his life into grave danger. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Different Kind of Story
I like Nevil Shute's books because the stories do not follow a certain pattern.They are usually about interesting people and their lives.There is none of this modern day gory or sexy description.He makes his characters very human and mostly humane. ... Read more

Product Description
John Turner, who has had a head injury in an air crash, is told that he has only a year to live. He decides to spend his last months making the journey to Rangoon, Burma, in a flying boat to rescue a friend who has gone native. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Satisfying
This is a very satisfying novel, one of Shute's best.In the limited time that remains before his death, John Turner sets out to locate and assist soldiers who befriended him while he was laid up in a hospital during the war.His account of the soldiers' stories is enriching and frequently moving.A British soldier marries a Burmese woman and adapts to her culture; a black American soldier is persecuted by white members of the military but is defended and embraced by the white residents of a British village.Shute addresses dynamic issues of culture and bigotry with sensitivity and insight.Unsurprisingly, Turner learns as much about himself as he does about his old friends, ultimately making his journey one of self-discovery.In prose that is quiet and graceful, Shute tells a story that is sad but uplifting.A very impressive work.

the chequer board by nevil shute
this is the second time i have listened to this book. i have also read it and all the other stories by this author and i am a member of the nevil shute society.he is my favorite author. trustee from the toolroom is my favorite and i also love round the bend and the pied piper. i plan on listening to or rereadigthis one mady more times along with on the beach which he also wrote
he has long been noted for being a mystic and when one reads the books one finds out why.

mary u. andrews

The Chequer Board
What would you do if you had but one more year to live?Battle-wounded Capt. John Turner decided to use his year seaching out three buddies what had been in the military hospital with him -- each in a terrible jam -- and perhaps give them a helping hand.You'll meet snobbish Phil Morgan, the pilot who hated foreigners, yet deserted his wife to live with a Burmese maiden;Duggie Brent, a young commando, who had to unlearn the horrible teachings that made him an unintentional killer; and Dave Lasurier, the shy Negro G. I. who got into bad trouble -- and found his way out with the help of an understanding woman.John Turner's search for these three takes him to the far corners of the earth and into one strange experience after another until, in the end, he has changed from a petty opportunist into a man with truly great understanding, a man without fear of death.Only the author of PIED PIPER and PASTORAL could have written this powerful and touching novel, a story the critics have recommended "heartily and without reservation!"Don't miss it.

Great Read
I read this book 15 years ago and I still feel nostalgic when I think about it. A great read which leaves you with that nice quiet feeling at the end, in spite of an active story line.

I would also recommend "Round The Bend" by Shute.

Thought Provoking & Beautifully Written
Nevil Shute's Chequer Board is just what it's title indicates: a checkerboard of characters, places and lives. All are sought out by one man who knew them all only briefly and now, that he is close to death, he wantsto "see how they are doing."The novel came out in the late1940's and refers back to World War II and how four men who survived thecrashing of a plane returning from North Africa get on with their lives. Mr. Shute's writing is crisp and lively, his characters come off as veryreal and each of them touches the reader in his own special way.If youcan ever find it, definitely pick up this book and let Nevil Shute take youon a wonderful ride tha you won't soon forget. ... Read more

Product Description
Nevil Shute’s most beloved novel, a tale of love and war, follows its enterprising heroine from the Malayan jungle during World War II to the rugged Australian outback.

Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman living in Malaya, is captured by the invading Japanese and forced on a brutal seven-month death march with dozens of other women and children. A few years after the war, Jean is back in England, the nightmare behind her. However, an unexpected inheritance inspires her to return to Malaya to give something back to the villagers who saved her life. But it turns out that they have a gift for her as well: the news that the young Australian soldier, Joe Harmon, who had risked his life to help the women, had miraculously survived. Jean’s search for Joe leads her to a desolate Australian outpost called Willstown, where she finds a challenge that will draw on all the resourcefulness and spirit that carried her through her war-time ordeals. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (89)

A town like Alice
Delivered to me in good time.Nevil Shute has done better.


I have difficulty reading this very small print!

A story to create love
This is one of the most beautiful and most real stories I have ever read in 77 years. It portrays the best and the worst of human behavior by telling the story of how the best faced the worst in WWII, a woman and a man to teach us all how to live our lives.

Some bonzer story-telling!
A TOWN LIKE ALICE, one of the most moving novels that I've ever had the privilege of reading, actually takes place in three connected segments.

As the story opens, Noel Strachan, an elderly London lawyer from Chancery Lane, engaged as executor for the will of a recently deceased bachelor client, finds himself in the position of becoming the trustee for the sole beneficiary who, under the terms of a carefully crafted will, cannot inherit the capital of a sizable estate until she turns 35. Strachan comes to know his new and now quite wealthy client, Jean Paget, an ostensibly typical 20-something young lady working as a typist for a leather goods manufacturer, as she tells the story of her experience in Malaya during the closing days of WW II six years earlier. Although he won't admit it to himself and outright denies it to his colleagues, Strachan falls in love with Paget despite their enormous difference in age as she tells the story of her shocking past.

In the second part of Shute's story, Paget picks up the narrative thread telling Strachan the horrific, heart-rending story of how she and a large group of married women were forced to walk across hundreds of miles of hot, malaria-infested Malayan territory by their Japanese captors enduring dysentery, cholera, hunger and, of course, simple exhaustion. During this gruesome death march, the ladies meet Joe Harman, a kindly Australian stockman, also captured by the Japanese who is driving a supply truck for the Japanese wartime railway construction program. When he steals some chickens from a Japanese officer to give to the ladies for food, he is captured, tortured, crucified and left to die hanging from his nailed hands on a tree trunk.

It is several years later that Paget, thinking Harman had succumbed to his torture in Malaya, and Harman, thinking that Paget, like all of her companions, was a married woman with a baby, discover that they were both wrong. The final segment of Shute's extraordinary tale of warmth, love and self-fulfilment closes as any reader would hope with them finding one another and establishing a new life and, indeed, a new community in post-war Australia, not too far from Alice Springs.

While A TOWN LIKE ALICE is unquestionably a put-a-smile-on-your-face, make-you-say-aaaah romantic tale, it is certainly not chick lit by any means. It's an imaginative, moving tale which touches on the themes of wartime atrocity, courage in the face of adversity and the difficulties and opportunities involved with the construction of a pioneering community. The simple fact of the prejudiced treatment of the aboriginal people of Australian at that time is included in a sad, ironic, rather matter of fact way without comment or criticism. Although Jean Paget, as an enlightened forward thinker, is shown as wishing that it might be otherwise, she acts as she is expected to according to the norms of the day.

Drama, suspense, romance and superb story-telling! Would I recommend it to a potential reader? Oh my word, yes! Too right! I'm not sure exactly where I'd rank it but I am quite certain I'd add it to my list of best lifetime novels. Yes, it's THAT good.

Paul Weiss

I couldn't put it down...
I received my book yesterday (in an excellent condition by the way) and I find myself today writing this review... It is really such a beautiful and captivating story that I couldn't put the book down. It is easy to read and from the very first pages I was already in love with the characters. I can honestly say that it is one of the best books I've read and I would recommend it to everyone looking for a sweet love story about war and courage.

A Town Like Alice
I don't know what type of review you want, but the book I received was not in 'very good' condition which is what I ordered.I also believe I was charged for a more expensive edition that what I ordered.I was very, very displeased with this order. ... Read more

Product Description
A fresh-faced young pilot, mistakenly sinks a British submarine. He is reprimanded and sent to a remote posting to test an experimental new bomb, a dangerous mission far away from the girl he loves who has set about clearing his name. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Nevil Shute reader
"Landfall" is a good but not great book.It's a pleasant read but not a page turner.

Early heartfelt Nevil Shute
This is one of Nevil Shute's earlier books, a war romance published in 1940, in which you feel the immediacy of the drama. It features sympathetic characters in a simple plot about a heroic period in England's history. Shute's storytelling skills got better and better through books like "Pastoral," "A Town Like Alice" and "On the Beach." But even this 'lesser' novel is a good read.

Landfall: A Channel Story is a wonderful read
I've been a fan of Nevil Shute since seeing and reading On The Beach many years ago. I thought I'd read every one of his books but recently checked my library against a list and found I'd missed Landfall. As with everything he wrote it's a warm, kind human story entwined with the aircraft, ships, and the sea. His technical acumen is always apparent. Just a fine, pleasant read.

Absorbing and Suspenseful
I have just reread this book after many years, and it was just as charming and engrossing as the first time. Nevil Shute's work never fails to bring to life the characters and make real the settings, generally of young people trying to make their way in a world fraught with the upheaval of World War II. "Landfall" is a simple story built upon heartfelt emotion and the edginess of danger. It sets the cold technical and strategic details of war against the fumbling confusion of young people trying to find their way through the wilderness of first love. The plot is absorbing and suspenseful, the characters appealing, and the style first rate.

Romantic adventure novel during WWII
A romantic adventure novel that takes place at the height of World War II. A British air reconnaissance officer pursues a local pub waitress, only to have his life thrown into chaos when he accidentally bombs a BritishU-boat, mistaking it for a German sub. A relationship that began as aromantic fling is suddenly tested by sincere trust and devotion as Monafights to make the Royal British Navy listen to the evidence she hasdiscovered about this tragedy that could absolve Lt. Chambers. A twisting,spine-bending climax leaves the reader on the edge of their seat as thelieutenant's attempt to amend his actions nearly separates the two forever.This is a story about the strength of true love and how it can overcome anyobstacle ... even a world war. ... Read more

Product Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (228)

haunting...
I read this book over 10 years ago and it is still one of the few books that I can honestly say left a mark on me. I remember finishing it in my english class and bawling my eyes out. I would highly recommend this book.

dull, dull, DULL! also very dated
After reading almost half of it, I could not bring myself to finish this book - I will just see the movie to see what the fuss is all about. For some reason this book is highly rated among lovers of apocalyptic fiction, but I fail to see why.

The writing is pretty bland, the language sounds stiltedly formal and old, and the characters are not well developed at all. The main premise is also very dated to the early cold war.

If you read any other reviews, you know that the novel is about the aftermath of a major nuclear war between the northern powers of Russia, China, and US. The survivors in Australia are waiting for radioactivity to spread slowly to them and kill them. In the mean time they go about their lives as usual (minus imported goods of course), whilst waiting for the bitter end.

The dialog, plot, and characters are so dull that I could not bother to care if the apocalyptic premise was actually plausible or interesting.

I think the reason why this book is popular is that it captures the cold war psyche of the 1950s and it influenced thinking about nuclear weapons and concern about the survival of humankind.

This novel is a dated period piece. Sort of like a pre-renaissance medieval painting, which by modern standards would be ugly and primitive, but played some role in depicting the history of its era and perhaps in the history of art.

Do not read this unless you are crazy about 1950s early nuclear cold war history.

Thoughtful Reading
What would you do if you knew the world was ending in a few short weeks?The book looks at several people in Australia and how they deal with the end of the world caused by radiation poisoning after World War III.Even though countries in the southern hemisphere didn't participate in the war, they suffer the consequences of radiation sickness as well.This isn't a book about life after an event de-populates most of the earth and how to go on.In this bookEVERYONE will die.The book is actually about coming to terms with the enevitable.Once read On TheBeach, you will still be thinking about it. Although written many years ago, it still seems timely.If you compare the time period (mid 50's) to today, would things be different?Would mankind react differently?That's what keeps you thinking!

We live as much as we can
I had trouble reading the first fifty or so pages of this book.Shute's cadences are hard to get a handle on, and he has some awkward attributive tags on his dialogue.I initially had no sympathy for half the characters.

I had trouble reading the last thirty pages of this book.Once I picked up the rhythm that Shute used to tell his story I became immersed in the world he created.The book changed from a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel to something greater.On the Beach transcends generic boundaries and becomes an elegy for the human race in an extinction that has not happened yet.I had trouble reading because of the tears in my eyes.

On the Beach is one of the most emotionally powerful books I have read in a long time.After putting it down, I tried to reflect and determined it had been almost a decade, when I read Lawrence's _Sons and Lovers_ that I was so moved by a book.I have a tender heart, but this book is not emotionally manipulative in a transparent way that cheapens the effect.On the Beach is powerful because it asks and answers fundamental questions about our being in a way that is truthful to what it means t be human.

Shute asks: "What do we do in the face of death?"He shows that we live as much as we can. We love.We make plans for the future.While we face death individually, we move towards it collectively.We are all cosigned to the same fate, but we do not have the certainty of the time that his characters do.On the Beach is an extended metaphor in a way, and as such is both an elegy and a celebration of what it means to be human.Sometimes that is beauty in the face of horror, and both come from the same root.

Perfect Gift for the Nevil Shute Fan!
I was so happy to find this book on Amazon! I have a friend who had been unable to find a copy of this book, and I was so pleased to be able to find it and give her a much appreciated gift! The book was just as described, and both of us are extremely pleased! ... Read more

Product Description
Nevil Shute's autobiographical work charts his selected remembrances from childhood to 1938. The parallels between Shute's life and his fiction can be seen: airship engineering, the new industry of commercial aircraft and his experience of civil servants and bureaucratic military agencies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

I like Nevil Shute
Personal opinion is:I like the way Nevil Shute writes.Ordinarily, I find a biography will put me to sleep quickly--So far Not Nevil.

An engineer's life
Neville Shute Norway is one of my two or three favorite novelists. I have worked my way through his books since I was a boy and he was still writing. He was a successful engineer and businessman and his novels have a bit of this in them. I would say that this book, and a couple of his novels, should be on every list of best conservative books. For example, in A Town Like Alice, his heroine is a young woman who decides to start a business in an tiny desolate town the Australian Outback and transforms it. Another post-war novel, Round The Bend, is the story of a young man building an air transportation business in the post-war period in the Persian Gulf region. Both are among his best and both show the demands of building your own business from scratch. This auto-biography contains many complaints about the rigidity and even cupidity of government bureaucrats. His account of how car manufacturer, Lord Nuffield, stopped making small aircraft engines in 1939 because of the stupidity of Air Ministry rules could be understood today as a contemporary story. Neville Shute tells his life story up to the beginning of the war and, as another reviewer has written, it would be nice to have a volume II about his life after the war. Several of his books, especially Most Secret, tell much of this story in fiction. After the war, he became completely disenchanted with the Labour government and emigrated to Australia. His low opinion of Labour politicians is most forcefully expressed in his fantasy novel, In the Wet, which is a prediction of life in Britain and Australia in the 1980s, 30 years after the book was written. He was too pessimistic about Britain and too optimistic about Australia but his political opinions were firmly expressed.

Slide Rule is the autobiography of an aircraft engineer and businessman who happened to be a talented novelist. His books are all still in print and are read enthusiastically by fans all over the world. In his life, the reader can find many of the incidents that gave character to his novels. It is well worth reading for the fan of the novels.

not about how to use a slide rule
What i was looking for was a book that would show me how to use a slide rule to take a trig class, since the teachers do not allow the use of calculator to do the calculations. this is not it.

A fascinating look into the aircraft industry in its adolescence.
I've never read anything by Nevil Shute before.I wanted to read this because I'm an avid airship fan.I got my airship jones taken care of, and so much more!Mr. Shute takes you inside the early stages of the aircraft industry, before trans-atlantic flights were commonplace, as different manufacturers vie with each other for design and market superiority.For any one having or wishing to acquire a sense of history and an understanding of the people and machines that drove it forward, I recommend this book.

A Business History From Someone Who Could Write
Before he became a world famous novelist, Nevil Shute Norway started an aircraft company and built it up to over 1,000 staff.This was a company started in 1932 - the Great Depression.

How he did that and the types of issues he faced are fascinating.His thoughts on why he choose possibly inflated figures for some of his company's assets and risked going to jail as a way to obtain financing and prevent the lay off of 500 people during the depression are very memorable.

A great read. ... Read more

Product Description
A novel tells the story of a man who leads an ordinary, uneventful life, until overnight he becomes the trustee of his 10-year-old niece, and involved in the search for some missing money. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (28)

One of my favorites!
A great book!Keith is a technical engineering writer.His sister, her husband, and their child want to immigrate to Canada. They are well-to-do but are not allowed to take enough money out of the country.So they ask Keith to build a secret box on their boat.He does and his sister and brother-in-law sail off, leaving their daughter behind until they get settled.They don't arrive, they shipwrecked and are confirmed dead.Then Keith finds out that the estate is broke.He realizes that any assets were probably stored in that secret box.Keith sets out to discover what happened to his sister and her husband and to see if he can retrieve any assets in order to properly care for his orphaned niece.Along the way, he discovers and is helped by people he has touched through his writing.

This is a feel-good book that was easy to read and kept me entertained throughout.One of Nevil Shute's best.

neville schute
neville schute did many of the calculations in the designof englands dirigibles, worked with barnes wallace on geodeisic airplane construction, lived on pots of jam on his sail boat, then moved to australia.He wrote a town like alice, on the beach, trustee from the tool room and many other novels. All of which are full of history from his time. wonderful stories.

Trustee From the Toolroom
Classic Nevil Shute novel; he was a master story-teller.We all have our problems; it's how we handle them that shows our character.This is a story of perseverance, committment, and integrity on top of tragedy.

Trustee from the Toolroom by Nevil Shute
This was Nevil Shute's last novel.It's a wonderful story about a man who is seemingly unimportant in the scheme of life.However, to the small section of the world's population involved in minature mechanics, he was well-known and admired.He feels a deep sense of responsiblity as trustee for his young niece. This mild mannered little man, who never left his home in West Ealing, except for a weekly jaunt to London, sets off on an incredible journey to reclaim his niece's inheritance.The story of this man's determination and courage is a heartwarming story.There was no other author quite like Nevil Shute.If you liked this story, you should read Shute's, No Highway.

Trustee from the Toolroom
My favorite Nevil Shute book.I love to reread it.
A Town Like Alice comes in second place. ... Read more

Product Description
During WWII, Peter Marshall’s crew becomes one of the most successful bombing teams on their Oxfordshire airbase. When Peter falls in love with a young WAAF officer, his concentration begins to suffer and it looks as though his perfect run of missions —and his life —may be threatened. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Pastoral by Nevil Shute
A wonderful book from WW2 era about romance in war time.Shute's story of two lovers and the effect of their romance on a plane crew and their station's commanding officers is Shute at his very best, which is unbeatable.Tame stuff in these days, but for the generation who have even faint childhood memories of that long ago time in our history, it's a marvelous read.

A quiet wartime romance
This is a lovely novel set on an RAF station during the war. Peter Marshall is a pilot who has made over 50 missions, making him one of the "old men" of the station at the age of 22. He meets a girl, who is a WAAF officer working on radio communications with the bombers during their missions. Her job is similar to that held by the WAAF character in Herman Wouk's great novel The Winds of War. In this case, the story is about two people and the stresses placed upon them in war. Shute has written other novels on the same theme, such as Most Secret, which concerns naval officers and commandoes. In this story, the title comes from their lives when not on missions. The young men in Marshall's crew find fishing in nearby streams to be a diversion and the early part of the story is about the fish they catch. Soon, he becomes quite fond of Gervaise, the young woman, but she still is highly motivated to do her duty in the war and gently tries to rebuff his affection. He is hurt by this and his relations with his crew suffers. Finally, on a mission, his distraction leads to a serious mistake in navigation and they are very nearly lost.

With considerable luck, and his flying skill, they manage a crash landing at another station. While their plane is repaired, Peter and Gervaise come to an understanding. She realizes that her rebuff has hurt him deeply. The wing commander and squadron commander realize that their senior pilot, one they depend upon to steady the young newcomers, is distracted by his failed romance. Even the battleaxe WAAF senior officer, called the "Queen WAAF" by the others, becomes interested in the affair. There is a tender scene with an old lady whose home has a fish pond, stocked with trout by her brigadier son for his return.

The story has, as another reviewer noted, a sort of melancholy but peaceful tone that must have been common in England as she fought for her life. Shute was too old for combat service at the time and worked in military matters as a reserve officer. The novel Most Secret is supposed to be based on much of this. He was an aircraft pioneer and engineer plus he was a sailor, owning his own yacht before the war. I have read about a dozen of his novels and have yet to find one I disliked. This is one of his best, fit to be placed with A Town Like Alice, Most Secret, The Far Country, No Highway and Trustee From the Toolroom. On the Beach came out when I was in college and scared me so badly that I still cannot read it again. It is excellent and the horrific future it predicted has faded from reality so this generation should enjoy it.

I definitely recommend this book. He has three phases of his writing; pre-war, wartime, which this novel is an example of, and post-war. The last phase is mostly about Australia although Trustee is set in England, Hawaii, Tahiti and America. I have read all his post-war novels and they are all excellent. The war-time books I am working my way through and have read this one and Most Secret. They are also excellent. I would recommend those books (Those I named) as the place to start if you are unfamiliar with his work. They all tend to be about technical subjects like flying and to have romance. They are also sentimental and usually have happy endings although On the Beach is the great exception. There is a reason why his writing is still popular nearly 50 years after his death. His character development is far superior to 95% of modern writers of popular fiction.

I should add that I found a very nice used copy that must be an early edition with leather binding. It is even bound with a small ribbon as a place mark.

The other reviews say it all
This is one of the most moving and enjoyable books I've ever read.I can't improve on my fellow reviewers -- just to say that I was ready to re-read it as soon as I got to the last page.

I think I'm a pretty hard case and tears came to my eyes at least a dozen times during this book.

Love in the face of doom
What is most remarkable about Pastoral is the way it manages to blend love and tragedy in an almost seamless manner.What would have been a rather conventional love story is transformed into something very different by the ever-present risk of death.RAF pilot Peter Marshall and WAAF signals officer Gervase Robinson go through an awkward and sometimes amusing courtship seemingly unconcerned about the fact that each one of his bomber missions over Germany could very easily be his last - indeed, some of the characters we meet during the story are lost over Germany. That they are able to function in a reasonably normal manner in the most terrifyingly abnormal of circusmstances is a tribute to the strength of the human spirit.In a way, this foreshadows Nevil Shute's much later book On the Beach, in which people are able to function day-to-day despite knowing that the world is soon coming to an end.A lesser writer than Shute probably would have made Pastoral heavy-handed and preachy, but there is almost none of that.All in all, a superb book, a truly timeless story despite its setting.
As an aside, the last few paragraphs of the story make me wonder whether it is based on true events.

Catching a fish....
... and bringing it to the flight station marks the unusual beginning of an exquisite and delicate love story between RAF pilot Peter Marshall and flight officer Gervase Robertson.

The story takes place in the midst of world war II terror and describes, in spellbinding detail, the flight missions over Germany, the dangers of cross fire and courage, during times when others have fear.

Peter's cockiness (not always at the right times), competence (in dodging enemy fire and bringing his crew home), and courage (in face of danger) win the reader's heart and make him a hero at his home station, even though he comes very close to losing is all: his aircraft, his crew and Gervase.

A marvelous story, despite its unusual start: catching a fish!

Perhaps this is Nevil Shute's best; his detail about the cold technicalities of cockpit war activity, set against the depths of an unforgettable love story makes "Pastoral" stand out above anything to be imagined. He just never ceases to surprise his readers! ... Read more

Product Description
In their trusty fishing boat, Genevieve, armed with only a flame thrower and limited ammunition, a small group of officers and men take a stand against the might of the German army after the fall of France in World War II. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Another of Shute's best
I am in love with this author's writings and he truly can tell a tale that keeps you turning the pages.Set in the war years, the characters are unique and developed throughly as the plot unfolds.You will never be disappointed with Mr. Shute's work which is now being re-printed in some areas.

Wartime tale but with human interest
This is a war time novel that I had not read before. I have been reading Neville Shute's novels for many years but had missed this one. It is excellent. The story is told in the same way he did "A Town Like Alice and "No Highway." He is the outsider looking at the characters from his passive role as observer. In the novel, the narrator is an older naval officer who becomes involved in a Special Operations action in Brittany. The other characters are young men and women and their lives and relationships are a large part of the story. This is extremely well done. One of them, a young industrial chemist, is similar to the character in "No Highway." He is totally alone and shrinks from contact with girls as he is certain he will mess it up. Another character grows up with the young woman who will become his wife. One of the most interesting, Charles Simon, is born British but lives almost his entire life in France except for his schooling. He, on an impulse, volunteers to be a British officer when a commando raid happens to find him at a seaside cafe during a raid. His character and the circumstances remind me of the Helen MacInnes novel Assignment in Brittany. The Bretons are fiercely independent and resisted the Germans more than most in 1940 France. They are still quite proud of their heritage, as I learned two summers ago when I inadvertently referred to a small hotel in Brittany as being Norman. I was firmly corrected. The adventure is good, although a bit bloodthirsty for some so many years after the war. The best part is the character development, which has always been the best feature of Neville Shute's novels.

Nevil Shute Norway
After many years (60?) since first reading him I decided to "pig out" on Nevil Shute and bought every available book on Amazon.Terrific selection!And I had not known that his last name is/was "Norway".I learned something new even as I groked Shute.Thanx muchly, Amazon!

A rollicking good tale of warfare and derring-do
I've read it many, many times.The characters are very believable (you will feel as though you have met people like them), and the suspense buildup is managed brilliantly.The ending, though poignant, is superb.

About as good a war tale as you can get -- the plot is fast-paced, always developing.No wasted words.This book proves that good war tales can be told without lasping into profanity and gore -- neither of which are used by Shute.

As with other Shute books, it is written from the viewpoint of a detached observer to the main tale -- a technique he has used rather well in other books.

Read _Most Secret_ once and I guarantee you will never look upon fishing boats or Worcester Sauce in quite the same way. ... Read more

Product Description
An aerial bomb attack on Southampton destroys the city’s infrastructure and leaves the inhabitants at the mercy of cholera and further assaults. This story follows the trials and tribulations of the Corbett family as they try to get to safety in the midst of the devastation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A slice of life in WWII
This is another wonderful Nevil Shute book.A sort of adventure story set during WWII, it is the story of one family coping with an exploding world. ... Read more

Product Description
After Philip Stenning is involved in a near-fatal plane crash, he feels he owes a debt of gratitude to the man who rescued him. His mysterious saviour is an escaped convict, and his determination to help him leads Stenning into a tense and dramatic adventure of intrigue, drug-running and murder. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Adventure story with likable characters
Nevil Shute was an excellent writer, with truly "decent" people for characters.This story has a bit more action than some of his later ones, and a little less character development.But a good read - adventure and suspense without filthy language and gore.

Early Nevil Shute
MARAZAN was one of the very early Nevil Shute stories, from his days as a full-time engineer.It still has the Shute character and prose style, but not the polish of his later books. MARAZAN is written as an adventure story, set in pre-WWII England. This is not really a book I would recommend to a random reader, but a fan of Nevil Shute would enjoy it as I did. ... Read more

Product Description
Young pilot Donald Ross has little in common with the Oxford don who has employed him on an expedition to the Arctic — and still les with his beautiful but stubborn daughter, Alix. Once the three of them reach the treacherous shores of Greenland their destinies are bound by the events that unfold. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A repeat read for 60 years
Nevil Shute was an extraordinary and imaginative story-teller, and I have enjoyed many of his novels, as well as his memoir "Slide Rule".He was an aeronautical engineer first, and several of his novels involved flying.But "An Old Captivity" is my favorite:I first read it in the 1940s, and have gone back to read it many times since.What "captivated" me is the combination of very factual and informative details about the challenges of flying a small plane from England to Greenland in the mid 1930s, and the fantastical story element in which the chief character is led, throughg a dream, to recapture a prior life as a Scottish slave of the Viking explorer Leif Eriksson. A mild romance lends the story more charm.

Good, but wanting more.
This is a good story which could have been richer, but fell short of being great because of a major structural problem in the narrative.That's a lot to say in one line and I'll try to get to the main point without spilling much of the story itself.

We have an aeroplane pilot by the name of Ross, a Professor Lockwood and his daughter, Alix.The professor wants to undertake a photographic survey of an archeological site in Greenland.Now, Ross and Alix made a bad first impression, which is the first real complication in the story.I wouldn't elaborate on it, because the relationship problem is, well, a standard plot element for any story.

After some initial problems with getting the expedition underway, the three of them are off.The daughter Alix is an unwelcome addition to the trip.Like I statement early, a standard plot element.

The story proceeds as a low level adventure, which is rugged, and this novel was published in 1940, prior to WWII, so this adds a solid historical approach.Ross is flying a sea plane so we're given a well written, informative story about flying, navigation, potential-problems and problems related to air travel.

The next paragraph reveals an important port of the story, so you are now forewarned.

Ultimately, they reach their destination; almost complete the photo expedition when a mystical sequence occurs.Ross, while in drugged sleep, has a reincarnation based dream experience, taking place during Viking colonization of Greenland.

First, I liked the idea, and the read was good, but the built up was too long.The novel is over 330 pages in length, and the dream occurs well into the last third of the book.The dream experience, related by Ross to the professor, should have been longer and in greater detail.

The conclusion of the story left me wanting more, and in a way, unsatisfied, but not cheated. The book is worth reading.

Shute has written a wonderfully variety of works, On the Beach, A Town Like Alice, being the most well known, and An Old Captivity, is a good story, with an apt title.

Shute never disappoints....
An Old Captivity is an overlapping tale of what Shute began in Vinland the Good.Shute's stories can be considered quaint, or old fashioned, by some, but in today's rushed society his characters are refreshingly dedicated to their trade/duties, and well thought out in their actions. This story is about an air adventure to seek archaeological data in a remote area of Greenland with just the right amount of reality to make the reader feel like they could be there.
Shute always does an excellent job in making the reader "feel the struggle" on a personal level.In today's novels, the inner struggle, or process of dealing with moral dilemmas, is too many times minimized or completely missing.Shute does a service to those who acknowledge the greater aspects of ones choices.He acknowledges in great detail the struggles within which we all face, yet rarely talk about or teach to the next generation. While Shute's novels are fiction, his characters are more real than the ones we will find from most any other author. A great adventure, a great read!
For those wishing to know more about Nevl Shute, an internet search for the Nevil Shute Norway Foundation will put them in touch with much information as well as other Shute enthusiasts.

Wanted More
I enjoyed every bit of this story, but it wanted more. More of an ending. More of a wrap-around of set-up plot elements. More expansion on some very critical scenes.

And yet, the book as is remains vividly and fondly in memory a couple weeks after reading it. The writing is lovely, the main character soundly developed (secondary characters are somewhat shadowy at times), with a lot of excellent and smoothly written detail. But... the thrust of the story came in a bit late and without complete set-up. Elements that were set-up and needed resolution were left undone with some characters left hanging.

What was extremely good... the wonderful detail of flying from England to Iceland to Greenland. Beautifully done. The book is worth the price for that alone.

A Little More than an Ordinary Plane Trip
Most people today think nothing of getting on airplane, and a few hours later, arriving at their destination half the world away with no more to complain about than poor service by the stewardess.It wasn't always this way, and even today going to some remote locations has at least some difficulties associated with it. This book details the adventures of three very disparate people, an Oxford don, his class conscious daughter, and an independent-minded pilot as they embark on a trip from England to Greenland during the mid-thirties in an attempt by the professor to prove that the Celts came along with the Norsemen during their exploration and colonization period of about AD1000.

Greenland is not a very hospitable place, with few inhabitants, almost no ports, unpredictable and typically highly inclement weather, and ice-locked most of the year.The preparations needed to go there at the time of this novel were extensive, approaching the level of effort of the Scott and Amundsen polar expeditions, though on a much smaller scale. Almost all of this effort falls on the shoulders of the pilot, from purchasing, assembling and testing an appropriate sea-plane to ordering supplies, obtaining the required documents, setting up logistical support bases, and finding and hiring an appropriately skilled photographer, all while working under a time deadline dictated by Greenland's very short summer.

Nevil's description of all of this work and the thought processes of his pilot are vivid, detailed, and highly believable. While progressing in the story line, his characters are richly developed. There is a natural antipathy between the working-man pilot and the daughter, who has led a very sheltered upper-class life, who naturally can't believe the cost and preparation required for the trip, so naturally believes that the pilot is merely out to pad his own pocket. But once they embark on the trip itself, the pilot's unstinting devotion to his work slowly wins her over, and a very predictable attraction starts to form between the two.

This is very typical of Nevil's work, as he was excellent at characterization and defining romantic attractions in a very believable and satisfying manner. Also typical is the fact that there are no bad guys or any high dramatic tension here. Instead his stories revolve around his characters, often very ordinary people dealing with the very mundane realities of life.This is a somewhat slow-moving book, typical of English novels written prior to WWII, but once adjusted to this novel's pace, I had no trouble remaining engrossed in the story.

There are some items here, though, that are not so good. Shute was an avionics engineer, and his knowledge of airplanes is very much on display here, probably a little too much so, with too many details about the plane gone over multiple times.There is a section near the end that digresses violently from the main story, almost a separate story in itself, that I did not think Shute did a proper job of preparing the reader for. The final ending that ties the main story and this other one together reeks of mysticism and was, I felt, unnecessary to completing his character's story arc.

Still, a very likeable read, probably not at the incredibly high level of things like his On the Beach or A Town Like Alice, but worthwhile reading. ... Read more

Product Description
Stephen Morris has just called off his engagement to the girl of his dreams because he is a penniless graduate with no prospects. He finds a job working as an aircraft mechanic, hoping to make his fortune. The novel, Pilotage — with a similar theme — is included. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Remarkable First Novel and a Good History as Well
STEPHEN MORRIS (inc. PILOTAGE) is both a compelling work of fiction and a very fine and thinly disguished memoir/history of the early days of British aviation immediately after the First World War.It is so good, in fact, that one wonders why he chose not to publish it:it did not appear until after his death.In its graceful and arresting writing, it anticipates his later aviation-theme novels, and in its glimpse of the proto-British aircraft industry, it calls to mind his autobiography SLIDE RULE.Shute, of course, made his living as a professional aeronautical engineer and stress calculator (as Nevil S. Norway), working for de Havilland on early biplane transport development, then the Vickers concern during the great days of British airship development, and then as a founder of the Airspeed company, a firm noted for the production of small, very high quality executive aircraft and trainers.As a novel, STEPHEN MORRIS and PILOTAGE (the two works are linked) anticipate those great novels of Saint-Exupery, SOUTHERN MAIL and NIGHT FLIGHT.As well, they call to mind Ernest Gann's best fiction, particularly his book BLAZE OF NOON.Shute understands the world of the airman (he was an accomplished light aircraft pilot), and, given his participation in the industry at the time, naturally understands the course of the field as well.This, too, echoes Saint-Ex and Gann.I would recommend that readers read all of these works to gain their own perspective on Shute, Saint-Ex, and Gann, as novelist-airmen and (in the case of Shute) as a designer and entrepreneur as well.In sum, STEPHEN MORRIS and PILOTAGE need to be read far more widely than they have been, and considered as major contributions to the early popular understanding of flight. ... Read more

Product Description
Tom Cutter runs an air charter service from Arabia to the Far East after the war. His best friend is the Russian-American Connie Shanklin. Connie works for Tom and inspires faith and hope in men of all denominations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

A 1940s View of World Religions
Round the Bend is the story of two boyhood friends, one of whom is an English and interested in airplanes and how they work. The other is foreign born and is both interested in airplanes and religion--he visits mosques on Fridays, synagogues on Saturdays and various churches on Sundays. Sometime before World War II the friends go their separate ways. In post war times Tom, the Englishman, has an idea about starting a business hauling freight by plane in the mideast. He is successful to a degree and decides to expand eastward into Indonesia. Years pass. Then Tom finds Connie, an airplane mechanic and teacher of prayer for Muslims, Hindus, and others. Reading Round the Bend makes one aware of the wars, rebellions and insurrections taking place in the East during the 1960s. In the meantime the reader becomes aware of the differences between Weat and East.It is a very good read.
Robert Obach, Ph.D.

Neville Shute's philosophy
Every time, almost, I read another Neville Shute novel, I come to the conclusion that it is the best of them all. That can't be true every time, of course, but this time it might be. I may be getting sentimental as I get older; I know that Mr Shute did so.Trustee from the Toolroom was his last novel and was published after his death. It is probably the most sentimental of his books but this one, in a rather different way, is next. The story is of Tom Cutter, a young man who loves aviation from his first contact with it as a boy. He was working as a garage mechanic when a flying circus came to his home town of Southhampton, England. He spends two days helping them with washing the airplanes and, as they are leaving, he asks for a permanent job. They have no spot for him but he travels on his own to their next stop and helps with odd jobs until the owner finally offers him a job for the season as a sort of clown, driving around with another young man in an old Ford while the stunt fliers do mock bombing and strafing. The other young man, a bit older, is named Connie Shaklin and most of the book is about Tom and Connie in their later lives in the airline business in the Near East.

Tom serves in the war, learns to fly but is mostly a ground mechanic. After the war, he gets the idea to buy an old surplus airplane and take it to the Persian Gulf area to haul cargo around for oil companies. He flies to Bahrain and sets up shop in an inactive RAF station. He hires, unusual for an Englishman, all native workers, many of them veterans of the recent war who had served in the British Army. They are content with lower salaries and he can keep his rates low. He profits from his business and soon needs another airplane. In two years, he needs yet a third. In the meantime he has a workforce of Arabs and Sikhs and his business keeps growing. He finally gets a charter to fly oil equipment to Indonesia and there, quite unexpectedly, he encounters his friend from the air circus, Connie Shaklin.

The rest of the story is about their lives in the air cargo business in the very early days of long distance aviation. Connie is an excellent engineer and, little by little, Tom comes to realize that Connie is attracting a lot of attention from other aircraft mechanics and workers because of his unique approach to religion. There is quite a bit of discussion of this philosophy in the book and it is very interesting. Basically, Connie is teaching the other young men that, when they do their jobs well, they are praying. He spends time with Imams although he is not Muslim. He teaches that every time a mechanic tightens a nut properly and wires it carefully so it cannot loosen, he is praying. The imams have become discouraged that the young are entranced by the new mechanical world and are losing interest in religion. Connie, who is Eurasian with a Russian mother and a Chinese father, begins to use the Chinese version of his name and goes by Shak Lin. He teaches them that prayer consists of doing a job well. Mechanics he has trained are more reliable than others and other airlines begin to notice that Shak Lin's teachings are spreading and are having a good effect on their own reliability. Of course, there are ignorant civil authorities who become annoyed at this religious revival.

The story is one that kept me riveted to the book until I finished it. There are some similarities to Magnificent Obsession, which is also a story that has a religious theme that transcends doctrine or denomination. In Round the Bend, Tom finds that Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus all respond to Connie's teaching and soon his fame spreads among the airline industry all over Asia. It's a very entertaining and sentimental story and has this interesting twist about a religion of doing your work well. St Benedict in the 10th century said "To Labor is to Pray." That is something like the theme of this novel. This is one of Shute's best.

Nevil Shute
Nevil Shute (Norway)'s Round the bend recently purchased is an early classic from this engineer & writer. It is written in a gentle reflective manner promoting basic values and asking questions of the reader. Recommended

A devotee of Connie Shak Lin
Nevil Shute is possibly my favorite writer, and this is definitely my favorite of his books.It quietly gets inside you and gradually begins to inform your thoughts and actions.Unassuming, simply told, and marvelous, on one level it's just an entertaining story that's difficult to put down.On other levels, it resonates deeply into matters of the heart and spirit.The characters are people I love, and the story is one that I return to again and again.

I love Shute's technical competence and honesty.Every word about aircraft, business, sailing, war, or other technical subjects, in any of his books, you just know is exactly true.That quiet unassuming truth pervades the characters and stories as well.They are so real, so ordinary, and so great.All his books have a delightful substance about them.After this one, please read Trustee from the Toolroom, The Pied Piper, The Legacy, and No Highway.

Shute at his best!
"On the Beach" is probably Shute's most famous book, but "Round the Bend" gets my vote for the best and most moving story he ever wrote. At the center of his tale is a Third-World aircraft technician who, through his simple teachings and exemplary behavior, seems to those who know him to be developing into at least another Mahatma Gandhi or maybe Jesus Christ. The story is told against the seemingly mundane background of two friends trying to establish a small international airline, a subject that Shute knew well. The mix of mechanics and mysticism is especially effective.

The main character makes no claims of divinity and there is nothing in his teachings that would upset the advocates of any of the world's great religions. There's no preaching: Just a well told story of a good man doing good in his day-to-day life and the tremendous effect that can have on other people in different parts of the world. It has been decades since I first read this book, and it still is one of my all-time favorites. ... Read more

Product Description
Theodore Honey is a scientist with an interest in the paranormal and a job testing metal fatigue in aircraft. When a new transatlantic plane, the Reindeer, is found to have crashed in Labrador, Theodore believes he knows why. The scientist is sent to the scene of the crash. En route to Canada Theodore learns he is flying in a Reindeer and is in danger. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A wonderful easy read for a lazy weekend.
This the sort of book I love to read over andover again every few years.I was exhausted this weekend and enjoyed reading this book lazily.I worked in the garden, made and ate a scone and read No Highway.It is an old fashioned novel slowly tells the tale if a "Boffin" a lonely scientist , his boss who is the narrator and what happens when research collides with life.
IN the early 50's Mr. Honey predicts the tail of a certain type of aircraft will fall off. Unfortunately this same type of aircraft is flying across theAtlantic.Lives are at stake andthe pure research of Mr. Honey becomes critical as does the character of Mr. Honey. He has a daughter andnot one but two unlikely love love interests. The is a happy ending and all is well.but the charm of this kind of novel is you are drawn into the life of some likable people. I enjoyed the visit.

A classic novel of aviation
This is one of Neville Shute's best novels (I keep saying that) and a pretty good movie was made of it with Jimmy Stewart, Glynis Johns and Marlene Dietrich. The story is about a shy and rather homely aircraft engineer who was widowed in the war and lives with his eight year old daughter. He is reclusive and not very well liked by his bosses but he is brilliant. He has a theory about metal fatigue and is using a tail plane from the brand new British trans-Atlantic airliner as a test bed. It hasn't occurred to him that the test, if successful, will result in grounding the fleet of planes. Then, he learns that one of the airliners has crashed in Canada and he is asked to go to the crash site to see if the tail is intact. He is an "inside man" and doesn't want to go but he is "volunteered" by his boss. Flying across the Atlantic at night, he is horrified to learn that not only is this one of the "Reindeer" airliners but it has exceeded the safe number of flying hours according to his calculations. Upset, he confides his fears to a famous movie actress who is on the flight and who was a favorite of his late wife. The stewardess tries to discourage him from upsetting the passengers but both women begin to fear he knows what he is talking about. They make it to the fuel stop at Gander but, to prevent the plane taking off again, he pulls the lever on the undercarriage, causing the plane to settle down onto the taxiway. A furious row ensues and the story is an enjoyable scientific adventure story and a romance as both women because very attracted to this shy engineer. I read this book in the 1940s when it came out and, shortly after it was published, the British Comet jet airliners began to crash. The cause was metal fatigue. Shute was an experienced aeronautical engineer who had built up his own company before the war. He knew his subject. The book is excellent. This should be on every list of novels for engineers.

They don't write them like that any more
This 1948 novel was one of the first adult books I read as a boy; remembering it fondly, I wanted to see how it stood up now. The brief answer: very well, although it shows its age. Such a book could never be published today, and in many ways that is a pity.

Nevil Shute Norway was an aircraft engineer by profession, and most of his novels (of which A TOWN LIKE ALICE is the best-known) touch to some degree on flying; in NO HIGHWAY, aircraft engineering is the entire background. The narrator, Dennis Scott, is head of a research department at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, England. One of his scientists, a rather unworldly widower named Theodore Honey, is convinced that Britain's latest transatlantic passenger aircraft, the Reindeer, is liable to catastrophic metal fatigue in the tail after so many hours' flying time, and convinces Scott that all Reindeers must be grounded before they approach that maximum. Unfortunately, two aircraft have already reached the danger point. One has recently crashed in a remote area of Labrador, and when Honey is sent out to investigate, he discovers he is traveling in the other one.

Shute's strength is that he writes what he knows, straightforwardly and without frills. He assumes that the reader will be interested in the technology, and in the bureaucratic procedures that Scott must go through to convince the appropriate agencies of the danger. It is true that some of Honey's theories sound kooky, to put it mildly, and it is hard to believe that time-to-fracture is as predictable as he makes out. But in 1954, six years after the book was published, Britain's Comet fleet, the world's first commercial passenger jet aircraft, suffered a series of fatal accidents that were ultimately put down to metal fatigue; the episode essentially ended Britain's domination of the transatlantic market. That era was about to change anyhow; one of the pleasures of the book is to go back before the jumbo jet, when transatlantic aircraft has to refuel at places like Gander in Newfoundland, and carried only a few dozen passengers in easy luxury.

NO HIGHWAY is also a heart-warming love story. This requires some suspension of contemporary cynicism, for Shute's character painting (especially his women, often referred to as "girls") now seems rather simplistic, in common with many of the popular writers of his generation. They don't write them like that any more -- with one notable exception: I suspect that the popularity of Alexander McCall Smith (author of THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB) is precisely because he too writes in the simple emotional terms of his boyhood reading. If you want Smith's warmth applied to more boyish subjects, you might do worse than look into Shute.

A chilling adventure about aircraft design
A Raindeer airplane crashes in Labrador after a little less than 1440 flying hours. In the official report the accident is ascribed to pilot error but Denis Scott at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough is not convinced that this explanation is true. Neither does Theodore Honey, a slightly eccentric member of Scott's staff, who has an as yet unproved theory that the tail plane of the Raindeer is bound to succumb to metal fatigue after 1440 hours in the air. What if Honey's experiments prove him to be right?

The technology is dated--the story isn't.
When Dr. Theodore Honey, a boffin of an aviation scientist, predicts that the wings on a new type of aircraft will begin falling off, he is sent across to Canada to investigate a previous crash.Bad choice--he is so unimpressive that when he learns that the aircraft he is on has already exceeded his estimated time to failure, he can only stop the flight by wrecking it when it stops to refuel at Gander.Almost everyone believes he's crazy except for a few--including the assistant director at his place of work, a stewardess, and a movie actress.

Shute is at his best in his characterizations--such as Monica Teasdale the fading American movie actress, who falls in love with Honey as she once did with a man before she became famous.She soon realizes she can never have Honey and must step aside for the stewardess, who can give him children and maintain him in his work, as well as give him love.The details are amusing--the actress, from Indiana, uses the word "hoosier" to the mystification of the British characters

As in most of Shute's books, there are no villians.The fact that many of the characters are working against each other does not make any of them evil, and when the truth is revealed, they quickly begin to work together.

For the information of readers, the book made a fairly poor movie starring (I kid you not), Jimmy Stewart as Honey.But as so few of Shute's books were made into movies, it is worth watching for that reason. ... Read more

Product Description
Alan Duncan returns to Australia after the war and several years of study in England. But his homecoming is marred by the mysterious suicide of his parents’ quiet and reliable parlour-maid. A search through her belongings in search of clues leads to heartbreaking revelations about the woman’s identity, the death of Alan’s brother Bill, and, above all, the disappearance of his brother’s fiancée. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Great storytelling & memorable characters
Someone dubbed Nevil Shute "the Prince of Storytellers" and it's not just hype. He wrote about 20 novels between 1930 and 1960, all of which are good and a few of which are great ("Trustee from the Toolroom, "A Town Like Alice" and "On the Beach"). Many of Shute's books, like "Requiem for a Wren," revolve around individuals caught up in the trauma of World War II or the post-war world. Many take place in the wide open spaces of his beloved Australia. They blend romance, adventure, sacrifice and deep sentiment (a quality I miss in our era of irony and detachment). Shute creates compelling characters -- his women are as well-drawn as his men -- who endure a lot and whose journey to hard-won wisdom is always riveting. "Requiem" is no exception. As its title suggests, it is a sad story but told with compassion and eloquence. It made me think about the unknown heroism and quiet desperation of people's lives and also about the dignity of each person's life. "Requiem," like all of Shute's work, is a good, thought-provoking reading experience.

A lovely, somber story
Neville Shute had three phases of his writing. There were novels of England, both during and after the war. I have not read the novels from before the war. One of his wonderful wartime novels is Most Secret, which I have reviewed elsewhere. This novel has many similarities to that one as it involves wartime England and young people who must cope with the disastrous burden of war.Both novels have a story about a dog that ends in sadness. This novel continues after the war and is the first of his Australian stories. Alan, the older son and narrator, is an RAF pilot who is shot down after D-Day, which figures very large in this story, and loses his feet. He spends months of rehabilitation, then returns home to the family sheep station at Coombargana, in south Australia. He is restless and unhappy and soon returns to England to finish his studies at Oxford. Eventually, he returns to Australia, determined to live there and take over the station from his aging parents. On the day he arrives, which is the opening of the book, his father informs him that a parlour maid at home has taken her life. No one knows why.

Most of the book is then told in flashback. He is puzzled about why the girl would end her life and he searches for information about her, finding her suitcase, which she has hidden in the attic. When he opens the suitcase, he learns that she is the girl his brother Bill would have married had he not been killed shortly before D-Day. Most of the book recounts their story and his own efforts to find her in England, and eventually in America, after the war. As he searches for her, he slowly comes to the conclusion that he was in love with her himself even though he had only met her once. His search has taught him much about her life and his determination to find her grows and becomes an obsession. Defeated at last, he returns to Australia only to learn that she has been caring for his parents while concealing her own identity. Why did she commit suicide the night before he arrives ?

He reads her diary and learns how she was terribly harmed by the war, by his brother's death and by the life that remained for her as she became progressively more isolated. Finally, she travels to Australia on the advice of a friendly American physician she met in England. She finds peace and contentment in her anonymous service for Bill's parents. The prospect of Alan's return threatens her exposure and she chooses to end her life the day before the man who has been searching for her arrives.

A Town Like Alice has a similar story of a search after the war but with a happy ending. The Far Country has a story of an English girl who comes out to Australia to visit family in the same general area as this story. Both have roughly the same setting and there are similarities in the stories. My favorites are A Town Like Alice and No Highway but this novel is now in my top three. It has a somber, melancholy tone but so did Most Secret. Shute seems to do a good job with female characters and this is another example. If you like Neville Shute, this is one of his best.

CASUALTIES OF WAR
Nevil Shute's gentle and very clever way of telling a story really shines here. This one sneaks up on you as you slowly find yourself caught up in the emotions of the characters, all of whose lives have been forever shaped and scarred by their experiences in WWII. Masterfully told in partial flashback, the mystery of the suicide of a parlourmaid at an Australian sheep station turns out to have profound implications for everyone involved in her life. A deeply moving and haunting novel, Mr. Shute deftly shows us how "Like some infernal monster, still venemous in death, a war can go on killing people for a long time after it's all over."

This is a stunning novel by a master storyteller. Highly recommended.

NOTE: This is also published as 'The Breaking Wave'

Truly Nevil Shute; one of his best!
The story of Alan Duncan begins with his return to Coombargana, a sheep farming station in the Western District of Australia. On the day before his return, the trusted parlour maid on the station, of whom his parents were very fond, died in her room unexpectedly, causing an awkward homecoming

Beginning with the pursuit of a law degree at Oxford University, the years of Alan's absence from family and homeland taught him very much, very quickly. Not surprising, he is drawn into World War-II action as a fighter pilot, risking all he has in life, just like his younger brother Bill.

Also like his brother, he is attracted to the same English girl, Janet Prentice, a WREN on active duty, assigned to maintenance of ordinance used in preparation of the D-Day invasion. The terrible war has left each one with terrible losses, of which the consequences carry the reader through Alan's quest to find Janet in the years that follow its ending in 1945.

In London, Viola Dawson, Janet's friend, is Alan's greatest source of information to lead him through his search. Where will he ultimately find her in this world that both separates and binds together those on opposite sides of the globe?

A terriffic story, beautifully written; also published under the title "The Breaking Wave."

One of his best
I have recently discovered Nevil Shute, and what a find!I highly recommend this book.It's a story that takes place during WWII when a man returns home to australia to find that his parents' parlor maid hascommitted suicide.As he searches for her identity he reminisces about thewar and the people he met. ... Read more

Product Description
See CD and other materials being sent in the next day or two. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Mysterious Aviator
It is great to have so many of the Nevil Shute titles (maybe all of them) available via these quality reprints.This is my second order of a reprint of a Shute book and I am very pleased.I had a problem with my first order (a wrinkled page not discovered until much later) and the publisher took care of it - good for them!There are many Shute fans out there and even though original copies of his titles are much desired, it is nice to be able to obtain them easily through this publisher. ... Read more

Product Description
The deepest darkest wilds of the Austrailan outback is the sun-baked setting for Nevil Shute’s novel of a romance that is tested by the differences between two young people’s home lives. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A great book!
This is one of the best books I have ever read! The writing is typical Scute, excellent! An American geologist drilling for oil in the outback of Australia meets Molly and is captivated by her. Molly's large multiracial family adds color and humor, as well as a great deal of common sense. Molly is intrigued by the American's camp equipment and all things American. Life in the "Lunatic" is very different from Stan's small town in Oregon but he comes to accept a different way of life.This book is a window into the past in outback Australia and small town America.I strongly recommend this wonderful book.

Nevil Shute's Australia
"Beyond the Black Stump" may be the weakest of the novels set in Australia, but it is still an enjoyable book to read.There are no mystical elements here ("In the Wet") nor has his ability to write dialogue for American English improved any.Having said that, the book has a quickly moving plot, some excellent character development and lots of Shute's dry, killingly funny sidelights.You don't want to miss the Chinese cemetary.And there is a fine twist to the dénoument.

Beyond the black stump
The gentle and very English urbanity of Nevil Shute comes through strongly in this work. It is obvious he likes Australia and is not exactly rapt in the US.
His characters, similar to many of the others he has used, vary from the earthy but wise Irishmen who run the station, to the brash yet sensitive young Americans who come to work the oil rig. Central to it all is Shute's archetypal heroine, the English/Australian lass brimming with common sense who gets the heart of the good man...in the end. In the process, our heroine discovers there is more to materialism than meets the eye.
Shute writes lovingly of the Austraian outback, and knowledgeably of airline travel in the fifties. Although his writing is detailed, it is never dull, and he weaves a believable web.
I have most of Shute's work and consider this one of his best; though what an American would think of it is open to question! Buy it and find out.

Good story, characterizations
The story of an American man (Stan Laird) who falls in love with a Western Australian girl (Mollie) in the 1950s, but how their cultures can't really allow them to stay together.I'm not so sure I agree with the idea that the theme was materialism vs. spiritualism.For me, it was more, perhaps, the idea that civilization comes with a price tag.That while it can and will bring nicer material things and formal marriage etc, it can also detract from the human spirit as well.The Americans Mollie meets must maintain a certain amount of hypocrisy, apparently, to cope with life.But as Mollie wisely perceives, they shouldn't be judged too harsly for that because civilization has made things more convenient for them, both physically and emotionally.I liked very much her (Schute's) perception that the Americans of 1955 Oregon probably wouldn't welcome the Oregon settlers of 1890 in their homes because, like the contemporary outback Australians, they'd find them too coarse and vulgar.

Schute is a remarkable writer.Traditional, I suppose, but compassionate and insightful.His women characters are very well drawn and, unquestionably, the wisest, toughest and the most admirable ones in the book.Although I found it hard to sypathize with Stan Laird because he seemed like kind of a philistine, Schute showed empathy for him too.A good read.

This book brings out the difference between various cultures
This book is an exceptionally crafted one and affected me profoundly.It brings out the disparity between materialism and spiritualism.The characters in this book are very vivid and this helps in the readers'involvement with the story. ... Read more