Nevil Shute

The novel by Nevil Shute. As the German army overruns France . An old Englishman returning to Britain agrees to escort two children to London. Trains, buses, hotels fail him and each shift in his plans adds a new child until he and six children attempt to evade the Nazis and cross the English Channel.

Theodore Honey is a shy, inconspicuous engineer whose eccentric interests are frowned upon in aviation circles. When a passenger plane crashes in Newfoundland under unexplained circumstances, Honey is determined to prove his unorthodox theory about what went wrong to his superiors, before more lives are lost. But while flying to the crash scene to investigate, Honey discovers to his horror that he is on board one of the defective planes and that he and his fellow passengers, including a friendly young stewardess and an aging movie actress, are in imminent peril.

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.

A harrowing, exciting, and in the end very satisfying war romance. *A town like Alice* tells of a young woman who miraculously survived a Japanese "death march" in World War II, and of an Australian soldier, also a prisoner of war, who offered to help her—even at the cost of his life. (From the Paperback edition)

**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, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Chequer_Board&oldid=735628011 **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."

A novel about the survivors of an atomic war, who face an inevitable end as radiation poisoning moves toward Australia from the North.