Nevil Shute

A perfect morning (from The young lions) / Irwin Shaw Lunghua camp (from Empire of the Sun) / J.G. Ballard The journey (from A town like Alice) / Nevil Shute The birth of an idea (from The man who never was) / Ewen Montague The big day (from From here to eternity) / James Jones Abducting the general (from Ill met by midnight) / W. Stanley Moss The landing at Kuralei (from Tales of the South Pacific) / James A. Michener Shall I live for a ghost (from The last enemy) / Richard Hillary Billy Pilgrim (from Slaughterhouse Five) / Kurt Vonnegut Battalion in defense (from Officers and gentlemen) / Evelyn Waugh Anopopei (from The naked and the dead) / Norman Mailer 'Plane land here' (from Wingate's raiders) / Charles J. Rolo Mission asymptote (from The white rabbit) / Bruce Marshall Fraternizing with the enemy? (from Reach for the sky) / Paul Brickhill Shooting party (from Grand party) Graham Brooks H-hour (from The longest day) / Cornelius Ryan Into Germany (from Carve her name with pride) / R.J. Minney Ironbottom Sound (from Ironbottom Sound) / Lindsay Baly The first bid for freedom (from The Colditz story) / P.R. Reed Some were unlucky (from Enemy coast ahead) / Guy Gibson, VC May 1941 (from Nella Last's diary) / Nella Last Major major major major (from Catch 22) / Joseph Heller The battle of the bulge (from The face of war) / Martha Gelhorn The invasion of Papua (from Retreat from Kokoda) / Raymond Paull No trouble at all (from The stories of flying officer X) / H.E. Bates Stalingrad The story of the battle (from Stalingrad point of return) / Ronald Seth The soldier looks for his family / John Prebble The white mouse and the Maquis d'Auvergne (from The white mouse) / Nancy Wake Fear of death / F.J. Salfeld The invaders (from The Moon is down) / John Steinbeck The compass rose (from The cruel sea) / Nicholas Monsarrat The diary of a desert rat (from The diary of a desert rat) / R.L. Crimp The Mannerheim Line (from Of many men) / James Aldridge Midway (from Torpedo Junction) / Robert J. Casey Hiroshima the fire (from Hiroshima) / John Hersey

When a young Englishwoman named Jennifer Morton leaves London to visit relatives on their sheep ranch in the Australian outback, she falls in love both with the gloriously beautiful country and with Carl, a Czech refugee who was a doctor in his own land and now works as a lumberjack. They are brought together through dramatic encounters and strange twists of fate, but their relationship hangs in the balance when Jennifer is called back to England.

These two linked novels have flying as a shared theme. In Stephen Morris we see the eponymous hero leaving Oxford University unable to marry his girl because of a lack of prospects. He starts as a mechanic and a pilot at a friends aerodrome business. In Pilotage, Peter Dennison is to start as a junior partner at a firm in China. The woman he wishes to marry can't accept his proposal if it means going to live in Hong Kong. Dennison has to find a way to make money and marry.

Keith Stewart is a quiet and unassuming man called upon to undertake an extraordinary task. A skilled maker of miniature working models, he lives a modest life devoted to his hobby. But when his sister and her wealthy husband die in a shipwreck on a coral reef in the Pacific—while trying to smuggle out of England their entire fortune in diamonds hidden in the keel of their yacht—Keith becomes trustee for his orphaned niece. To save her from destitution he must travel halfway around the world and risk a long voyage in a small boat in inhospitable waters to recover her inheritance. In the course of his adventure-filled quest, a colorful and international cast of characters mobilize to help him, and this humble man discovers he has more friends and admirers than he could have dared to imagine.

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.

The Chequer Board is a novel by Nevil Shute, first published in the United Kingdom in 1947 by William Heinemann Ltd. The novel deals fairly with the question of racism within the US forces during World War II and portrays black characters with great sympathy and support. This article by: Wikipedia contributors, "The Chequer Board," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Plot summary It is a multi-part story telling of the experience of one John (Jackie) Turner, whom the doctors have given just one year to live due to injuries sustained in a WWII plane crash. Turner decides to use his remaining time to trace the men he got to know while recovering in hospital. The men were: Flying Officer Phillip Morgan: the plane's British pilot. Corporal Duggie Brent: a young British Commando, accused of murder. Pfc Dave Lesurier: a black American serviceman, accused of attempted rape, in hospital after cutting his own throat while being pursued. As the story unfolds, we learn that charges against Lesurier were dropped after an Army investigation and that he later returned to the English town near which he was stationed during the war. He marries the girl he was courting and becomes a draughtsman. Brent is acquitted of murder but served six months for manslaughter after a brilliantly defended court-martial. He is later found living close to Lesurier and working as a meat vendor. Morgan relocates to Burma and becomes a successful businessman, married into a strong local community. Turner is contented by the thought that each man, who had helped with his recovery after the plane crash, had succeeded in making a good life in his own way. The novel ends with what will be his last visit to the medical specialist. Underlying the novel is the Buddhist belief in reincarnation and redemption. Despite his shady past, it is indicated that Turner, through his attempts to help his fellow patients and his acceptance of his death, has moved closer to Nirvana. Production The book's title is taken from Stanza XLIX of Edward FitzGerald's Rubáiyát of Khayyám: 'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays. Shute began writing The Chequer Board in September 1945 and completed it in February 1946. The portions of the book that take place in Burma were based on his own experiences there during World War II. From the dust-jacket: "It was very difficult to feel these cultured brown girls, all speaking excellent English...were really any different from the girls at home." He also noted during the war the "popularity of American Negroes in England and the superior quality of the Burmese people", both of which are central to the book's story. Reception Shute was concerned that sales of the book in the United States would be negatively impacted by the book's open-minded handling of racial issues; as it turned out, sales soared. Shute and his wife traveled the U.S. on Greyhound buses to "get in touch with the man on the street," finding the experience refreshing. Afterwards he wrote "Sincerity is the first attribute for making money in the business of writing novels."

Against the grim background of England at war, the romance of Jery Chambers and Mona Stevens stands out like an unexpected spring day in the midst of a brutal winter. Jerry is a flying officer in the RAF. At the hotel which is the hangout for officers he sees Mona. She has taken the job of barmaid at the Royal Clarence because it is more exciting than anything else she can find to do. They are both young, both lonely. It might have turned out to be just another wartime romance, but Jerry's job got him into serious trouble from which there might have been no escape if it hadn't been for the loyalty and wisdom of Mona.

Récit d'anticipation que le film de Stanley Kramer a popularisé. Sur le thème de la fin du monde, le romancier américain a brodé une histoire qui s'apparente à la science-fiction par la situation exploitée. Roman à message implicite comme c'est souvent le cas des écrivains qui s'aventurent une seule fois dans ce domaine. SDM

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. Jean's travels 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.

John Pascoe, a retired military flyer and commercial pilot, has crashed on a remote Tasmania mountain while attempting a rescue. Another pilot and friend, Ronnie Clark, volunteers to rescue the injured flyer. Through strange dreams that appear to Clark we glimpse Pascoe's past family life with its secrets.

A fantastic story of a life in the aviation industry, including being the senior mathematician on the R100 airship in Yorkshire and a co-founder of the Airspeed aircraft company.

Originally published in 1953, In the Wet is Nevil Shute's speculative glance into the future of the British Empire. An elderly clergyman stationed in the Australian bush is called to the bedside of a dying derelict. In his delirium Stevie tells a story of England in 1983 through the medium of a squadron air pilot in the service of Queen Elizabeth II.

Also published under the better-kown title "Ruined City'.

It's a film script that tells the historical story of the discovery of America by Leif Ericsson in 1003. Small parts of the story were also included in Shute's book 'An Old Captivity'.

Aviator contracts to take an Oxford Don to Greenland, and there to discover the truth of whether the Norwegians were the first settlers in Greenland.

US title for 'What happened to the Corbetts'. Prophetic story about Blitz in Southampton. Written in 1938