A Town Like Alice: (Vintage Classics Shute Series)

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Shute's portrayal of Jean and her fellow English women and their children is a tribute to the courage and endurance of those individuals who have come to be called the collateral damage of war. The Japanese have no use for these women and children. Nor do they want to waste precious resources on keeping them alive when there is the Imperial Army to feed.

and finally it is inevitable that organised labour causes decent people to throw their hands up in the air with despair and close down their businesses. I've owned a copy of A Town Like Alice for more than ten years now, and I've always stopped short of reaching for it because... it just didn't sound that interesting to me. On the whole, I'm not a huge fan of war books, especially those set within the conflict itself. But I made a mistake waiting to read this one. I've been missing out.Some books I feel I have to give 5★, even if the book has some considerable flaws. For me, Auē was one such book.

I will admit at this juncture that I am unabashedly a romantic. Nevil Shute wrote a story which enchanted me with its charm, courage, and passion that was truly unbridled only after a wedding ring was slipped onto a finger, and a marriage meant to last a lifetime. Old fashioned, you say?Some free versions are better than others, please feel free to try these, but I cannot guarantee the quality.

Jean's story gradually unfolds as she tells of the terrible ordeal she suffered through on a death march in Malaya , at the hands of the Japanese during WW II . It is then that we discover that she has guts, heart and smarts . Jean makes assumptions about the aboriginal people she meets, but by the end of the book there are hints that she is getting to know them better. She develops a greater understanding for a woman who married a white man and who can’t bear to be parted from her kitten (Jean assumes the woman is childish but after spending a night alone at Joe’s station she realizes that the woman is lonely). When Jean has trouble understanding an aboriginal person, she doesn’t assume that this person is stupid and she doesn’t blame him for speaking in a heavy accent – she blames herself for not having acclimated enough to understand it.During the last part of the book , I just couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen to Jean or Joe . I'm so glad I was wrong . A TOWN LIKE ALICE, one of the most moving novels that I've ever had the privilege of reading, actually takes place in three connected segments. The mysterious Mrs. Brando". The Australian Women's Weekly. 6 November 1957. p.3 . Retrieved 17 May 2012– via National Library of Australia.

I did receive A Town like Alice from a dear (old) colleague during my farewell drink. I had quit my job quite suddenly. A job I absolutely loved and with a heavy heart I had handed over my resignation letter. But why? For love…. The second part is a love story. While in Malaysia, Jean met an Australian soldier, Joe Harmon, and they fell in love, or at least in serious flirt. Jean thinks that Joe died in Malaysia and when she learns that he’s alive she goes to Australia to meet him and to see if they might be a true romance. This is your golden opportunity to swoon over Joe Harmon and laugh hysterically at Jean’s sarong problems. Since I’m mostly going to be writing about Jean, let me take a moment here to say that if Joe would stop using racist language for five minutes, he would be a romance hero for the ages – he’s protective of Jean without being patronizing, he risks his life to get her some soap and medicines and food in Malaysia, he knows that no means no, and he thinks it’s great that Jean is an ambitious business woman. Also, if you like your heroes laconic, he’s your guy. Joe Harman is based on a real man by the name of Herbert James ‘Ringer’ Edwards. He was every inch the man that Shute describes in his novel. They crucified him,’ she said quietly. ‘They took us down to Kuantan, and they nailed his hands to a tree, and beat him to death. They kept us there, and made us look on while they did it.’” There is one major plot twist which is dangled so masterfully by Shute, but the reveal is not a grand fireworks affair. That just isn’t Shute’s style. He brings it in subtly, as if to say,...of course, this is what really happened.What a confused book. A Town Like Alice has been such an intriguing read. The writing had an easy flow to it and the story was certainly gripping, even though this decidedly is a book of two halves. Nevil Shute: A Biography by Julian Smith National Library of Australia free public access to books in Australian libraries. It would be tempting to say that "A Town Like Alice" is a sentimental romance and leave it at that. However, it goes beyond those limits in a depiction of courage and survival, while acting selflessly, and a life lived happily ever after. I'm told that happens some times. I wouldn't attempt to deny that degree of happiness to those that find it, nor would I sneer at it because I hadn't necessarily found it. It was an enjoyable book, very easy reading, and had it's moments of sadness and amusement, but the story wasn't without some poorly conceived aspects. The romance was pretty lamely written, and contradictory they 'spent that day in a curious mixture of love-making and economic discussion' in one chapter, and then she apologies for 'making him wait until they are married', and as mentioned below, follows the conservative conventions in the town. and that there is a a self evident and natural division of labour between man the mechanic, and woman the home maker,