January 2022: Nevil Shute

We are ringing in the new year with Nevil Shute (1899-1960), an English author, aeronautical engineer and pilot who emigrated to Australia in 1950.

His most popular work is the post-apocalyptic On the Beach (1957) but most of his work is not speculative.

A Town Like Alice (1950)(published as "The Legacy" in the USA because why not) is his most popular non-speculative novel.

His first published novel is Marazan (1926) although he wrote Stephen Morris and its sequel "Pilotage" in 1923 and 1924; both were published in 1961 (after Shute had died). As happens often with popular authors, a never-before-published work (a novella) was unearthed and published in 2002: The Seafarers.

Had you read anything by him? What do you plan to read in January?

PS: He is a new author for me (as in "I've never heard of him until someone nominated him here").

I just might finally get to On the Beach! I've only read A Town Like Alice but hubs has quite a few in his collection and loves Shute.

I have never read anything by Nevil Shute but I think I’ve already decided to start with On the Beach.

I have always loved Shute's understated style and as I have been meaning to read What happened to the Corbetts for a long time I shall read that.

I strongly recommendPastoral which is a romance set on a wartime RAF station and has a very authentic feel.

Nevil Shute has been proposed before on Monthly Author Reads, in 2012: "Nevil Shute for June 2012".

It seems this thread didn't go anywhere, back then in 2012. I remember it irritated me, as I had never even hear of Nevil Shute.

Then, when I say a copy is somewhat poor condition in a second-hand bookstore, I bought Round the bend in July 2012 (Proves all the more that once you are aware, you start seeing things). However, I didn't read that until December 2017.

In the meantime, in 2014, I bought all available titles in Vintage paperback, which then flooded the bookshelves.

So far, I have read and much enjoyed reading:
Round the bend
Slide rule. The autobiography of an engineer
So disdained
A town like Alice
What Happened to the Corbetts

I still have several more on my TBR, so hope to read some in January.

Copied from the 2012 thread:

Interested readers of Nevil Shute books may also like to visit the website www.nevilshute.org and facebook page Shutists.

Ooh!I didn't know about this group, but Mr Norway is one of my favourite authors, so here I am...

I think I have read all of his novels, but the firm faves are A Town like Alice, Round the Bend, Ruined City and In the Wet.

I will just point out that although he was British, he moved to Australia in 1950 and lived there until his death.

A suggestion for anyone coming new to him - try Trustee from the Toolroom

>7 sarahemmm: Yep - I have the bit about moving to Australia in the very first paragraph. :) Welcome to the group! :)

I greatly enjoyed No Highway, and unlike On the Beach, it has a very good movie adaptation, titled No Highway in the Sky. The movie version of On the Beach is painful. Pauline Kael gave it a hilariously stinging review. Among other problems, American actors in lead roles uniformly fail to sound Australian or British, as applicable, while local Australians hired to play the crew of the American ship are equally incapable of sounding American.

>8 AnnieMod: Eh, sorry. My eye must have skipped over the end of the sentence.

Oh my one of my fav authors back in the day. Remember very well reading on the beach and having to read it a few more times. So powerful. Read Town called Alice and a few others. Would love to read more. (I did like the movie adaptation of on the beach, and it felt right, but that was ages ago before I knew any better.

Haven't read him in over 30 years but enjoyed his books. Recently bought An Old Captivity (blends romance with aeronautical adventure) so am inspired now to read this in January.

>10 sarahemmm: No worries. :) I had to check to make sure I did not forget to add that.

Welcome to everyone who is joining our small group reads for the first time! (being mentioned in the LT newsletter helps people find us) :)

I have owned and read all 24 novels published as 'Nevil Shute Complete Works' - 24 novels and a Biography - in the early 1960s by arrangement with William Heinemann Ltd as 'Heron Books' after he had died. I am aware of 'The Seafarers' which had existed in manuscript form sometime around 1946-47 and resurrected in 2001 and, with minor editing, published for the first time in May 2002 but I have not read this work. Clearly as a young adult in the 1960s with the 'cold war' escalating rapidly, Nevil's 'On the Beach', first published in 1957 made the strongest impression on me at that time. Remembering that I read all these books over 50 years ago, it says a lot that I still have the set of hardbacks with their distinctive identical covers on my bookshelf after all this time. I still have 4½ A4 pages containing a short synopsis of each book published by the Nevil Shute Foundation.

I love Nevil Shute!

Favorites so far are

A Town Like Alice
Trustee from the Toolroom
On the Beach
Pied Piper

I’m glad to see all the love for Nevil Shute. It’s making me excited to read him in January.

I have never read any of his before, but I have had A Town Like Alice for a few years, so I will read that.

Shute is a new author for me also. A friend of mine has lent me several of his books and I’m starting with The Chequer Board. So far he seems to be a very good story teller.

As it turned out, my library has 21 of his novels so I have A Town Like Alice and On the Beach out at the moment. Updates to follow when I actually read them (next week?) :)

>14 Kintra: Do you plan to reread any of them this year/month?

I'm about a third of the way through A Town Like Alice and it is a gripping story.

I’ve finished The Chequer Board; Chute is a fine storyteller and I look forward to a few more of his novels this month.

I've finished A Town Like Alice and enjoyed it, though it was certainly a novel of three parts. My review is here: https://www.librarything.com/work/51791/reviews/130143718

Enjoyed "An Old Captivity" by Shute about a 1940's era pilot who flies a professor and his daughter from England to Greenland to study Viking ruins. Blends romance and aeronautical adventure with unique and compelling strands of fantasy. My third read of Shute's novels. Glas he was the choice for this month.

Hello everyone. I’ve just joined and am excited to be here. I will be reading Pied Piper. I read On the Beach years ago and it had quite an impact on me, and A Town Like Alice, which I liked very much. I’m so glad you’ve chosen him as this month’s author, as I’ve always intended to read more by him. I’ve enjoyed everyone’s comments here. Happy reading everyone.

I’ve just finished Pied Piper. I could hardly put it down once I started reading. Nevil Shute is in my reading future.

Mr. Howard tells his story to an acquaintance at their London club as they sit out an air raid in comfortable chairs drinking Marsala. Mr. Howard is an old man, who, against all odds, just as France is overrun by the Germans in 1940, attempts to shepherd some children from Dijon to England. The story is full of peril and action but reads calmly and steadily, rather like Mr. Howard himself. This book was all I had hoped for and more. So glad I found it.

>25 marell: This is also one of my favourite Shute novels. I like your description of 'calm and steady.' This writer has an understated style that I have always very much liked.

>26 Maura49: Thank you, Maura. I’ve just discovered that my library system has 15 of his books I’ve never read. I didn’t know he had written so many books. How glad I am to have discovered this gold mine.

I plan to read one or both of these -

The Rainbow and the Rose and
Pastoral

I’ve just finished On the Beach. Cannot say I enjoyed this novel, it was too devastating. But I found myself totally engrossed in the lives of its characters and their different ways of coping with their terrible situation. Shute makes the unimaginable all too believable—and worrying. I’ll certainly be reading more of his work, maybe wiil read one more for this thread.

I love many of his books but Pastoral is starting our with too much fishing detail!

>30 nrmay: I take your point. The fishing of course is what bonds the air crew. I feel that the book does improve. Shute could be a bit 'nerdy' when he got on to his favourite topics.

>31 Maura49:
It got better after p.20 when our pilot meets the girl!
He asks her "Will you listen if I tell you how I caught it?" (the fish)
She replies "Not for very long."

I like the bit about searching for a glimpse of the fox and the badger.
Now at 50+ pages I'm hooked.

>32 nrmay: I love that quote. how many girlfriends have wanted to say that to a boyfriend obsessing over cars for example? Very glad to hear that the story now grabbing you. i love it and have read it many times.

>31 Maura49: yes, the stuff about cattle farming and establishing Willstown in A Town Like Alice was a bit much in places, good overall though the novel is.

There were some Covid issues and issues of time that prevented me from getting to the library to get my Nevil Shute book from the library for this month. I still hope to read him at some point.

I finally got around to fulfilling my pledge to read What happened to the Corbetts which was surprisingly difficult to get hold of. It is set in Southampton in the south of England . Shute wrote this as World War Two approached but there is no sense of an expected war as the Corbett family are taken by surprise when a night time air raid begins. The enemy is not identified clearly although it is pretty clear which country Shute is writing about. As the family realise that this is no momentary event they leave for the coast where they have a small boat.
Eventually they have to head elsewhere and there are plenty of suspenseful scenes to follow as they seek safety,
Nevil Shute, in a foreward to my edition, says that his major fears were of poison gas and disease which he explores in his novel, but he did not foresee the devastating fires which many British cities were exposed to in the Blitz.
I don't think this is his best book; I found too many plot holes to totally satisfy me but as in many of his stories he is excellent on the fortitude and community of ordinary people.