If you're holding the book in your hand, and have looked at the blurbs, this won't be a spoiler: the superpowers of the northern hemisphere have decided that their national security rests on making the world uninhabitable. Now, a deadly cloud of radioactivity is making its way southward...

This book has some flaws, but its power over me remains so great that I'm sticking with ten stars. As much as I'd love to propose this to my sf book club, I'd make a terrible discussion leader, snuffling into my Kleenex for an hour. Shute almost never shows his characters indulging in emotion - we feel it for them, and it builds to an almost uncontainable pitch.

First flaw: the young wife, Mary, seems incapable of understanding what's going on, and I certainly resent this assignment of stupidity to a female character. But this was written in the 1950's. I don't know about Australia, but in the US, girls at that time were being given a pretty strong message that their destiny and only hope of happiness was to be, or to become, that ignorant. Shute needed a character to represent all the people who would not be able to grasp reality, and by the standards of that time, he made the obvious choice.

Second flaw: all of the characters approach the end with quiet courage, even heroism. They live up to their responsibilities and take care of their loved ones. There is almost NO mention anywhere in the book of riots or looting. Again, I don't know about Australia, but I cannot believe this would be possible in the US, or most of the world. This may seem crazy to say about a book that reduces me to tears, but I believe Nevil Shute has written an unrealistically optimistic book about the end of the world. Still, I would love to believe that we could find it within ourselves to finish our collective existence with such dignity.

There's a 1959 film version of the book, starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner. As always, the film departs from the book in some important ways, but it's good enough to be well worth watching.

But that's just one person's opinion. Future readers, what do YOU think of this book?

Mailed to LadyIndigo for J4shaw's Australian Literature Sweepstakes.

wow - i was/am the decoy for the sweeps - so cool

thankyou so much for this special book - published before i was even born!
(c) 1957, this edition is the sixth printing january 1960

happy reading
;)

i am going to pass this on as a wishlist rabck - it might languish here for a l-o-n-g time otherwise

not only did i read this novel many years ago, it was a text we studied, or picked apart until it was deader than dead....

thanks judyslump612 for sending it my way and now it travels to a new home

;)

happy reading

;)

Arrived in the post today. Thanks!
Going to the TBR stack (a.k.a. the towering bookpile of doom).

So apparently I finished this in October, but neglected to make any real notes.
The writing itself is good, the story not so much. A fascinating premise taken in what I would consider an unappealing direction.
It is an interesting read, one I would not care to revisit.

Sent as part of J4shaw's Australian literature sweeps. (https://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/10/565526)
I didn't realise when I picked out this title for the sweeps that it's not the first time this book has been in this particular sweep!

I hope the winner enjoys the book!

The book is here, thank you!

Congratulations, you found a travelling book! Enjoy and later leave it for other people to find. Feel also free to come back here to let us all know what you thought of the book and where you left it :)