A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

From the hugely acclaimed author of On the Beach--a tale of love and war that follows its enterprising heroine from the Malayan jungle during World War II to the rugged Australian outback. * "Entertaining ... Dramatic ... Shute is a natural and effective story-teller." --The New York Times

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.

Norway, Nevil Shute, was born in Ealing, London, in 1899. He went to Balliol College in Oxford to study Engineering Science. Pursuing his childhood dream, he worked as an aeronautical engineer on the development of airships and, later, airplanes in the budding aircraft industry. He began writing in his leisure time and published his first novel, Marazan, in 1926, under the pseudonym Nevil Shute in order to safeguard his engineering job. He married Frances Mary Heaton in 1931, and the couple had two daughters.

During WWII, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, where he worked on secret weapon development. He continued to write after the war and eventually settled in Australia, where he died in 1960. Pied Piper (1942), A Town Like Alice (1950), and On the Beach (1957) are among his best-known works.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780307474001
ISBN 10	0307474003
Title	A Town Like Alice
Author	Nevil Shute
Series	Vintage International
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2010-02-09
Number of pages	368
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.