A. Hall & Co. by Joseph C. Lincoln
Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search, Part 3 by Gene Luen Yang
Binky Takes Charge by Ashley Spires
Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D'Agnese
The Brontë Sisters by Catherine Reef
Can You Count to a Googol? by Robert E. Wells
The Chairs Are Where the People Go by Misha Glouberman
Constable and Toop by Gareth P. Jones
The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean
Dishwasher by Pete Jordan
Ghost Knight by Cornelia Funke
Home Front Girl by Joan Wehlen Morrison
I Am John I Am Paul by Mark Tedesco
Ichiro by Ryan Inzana
The Legend of Korra: The Art of the Animated Series by Michael Dante DiMartino
Linoleum, Better Babies, and the Modern Farm Woman, 1890-1930 by Marilyn Irvin Holt
Little Bo in Italy by Julie Andrews Edwards
Little Fish: A Memoir from a Different Kind of Year by Ramsey Beyer
Mary-'Gusta by Joseph C. Lincoln
The Notorious Benedict Arnold by Steve Sheinkin
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
The Salaryman's Wife by Sujata Massey
Silent Visions by John Bengtson
Specials by Scott Westerfeld
Squid and Octopus Friends for Always by Tao Nyeu
A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California by Laura Cunningham
Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson
The Unusual Suspects by Michael Buckley
Varjak Paw by S.F. Said
The View from the Top by Hillary Frank
Comments for On the Beach
On the Beach: 03/28/14
On the Beach by Nevil Shute is a cold war — near future speculative fiction about the final days of life on Earth after nuclear war. Written in 1957, the near future is 1963. The setting is primarily Melbourne and rural parts nearby, though there is a brief tour via submarine to the waters in and around Seattle, Washington.
The bombs wiped out life in the Northern Hemisphere and now the the Southern Hemisphere is trying to live as normally as possible as the toxic radiation wends its way southward.
Told through an ensemble cast � as many disaster books are — On the Beach follows an American submarine captain and the Australian family he is rooming with. There is also the debutante neighbor who has taken to living her last days as drunk as possible.
It's a beautifully told story about trying to "keep calm and carry on" to borrow the British phrase. As it becomes all the more apparent that Melbourne won't be any more spared than any other part of the world, each of the main characters must make his or her own peace with the world. Some will choose to end it and some will choose to see things out to the bitter end.
It's not a story for the depressed, I'll tell you. There are some excruciatingly painful pieces to read (or in my case, listen to).
Four stars