Though we are reading of the last days of humanity on an earth made uninhabitable by radioactivity, no one in ["On the Beach"] gets very excited about it. Mr. Shute quotes T. S. Eliot's dictum that the world will end not with a bang but a whimper, but the last people on earth do not even whimper as they await the approaching radioactive pall. Calmly, they face the inevitable, knowing with certainty that death is only three or six months away, yet planting daffodils to bloom next spring, and studying shorthand for possible future jobs. Even the young American submarine commander stays faithful to his wife at home, emotionally unable to admit his rational awareness that she and their children are dead.

I believe "On the Beach" should be read by every thinking person. Nevil Shute has done an unusually able and imaginative job in depicting how people...