Weekender 5 Glamor was left behind". The Argus. Melbourne. 28 July 1956. p.13 . Retrieved 17 May 2012– via National Library of Australia.

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute National Library of Australia free public access to books in Australian libraries. 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 . 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.

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In this edition, there is a wonderful afterword by Jenny Colgan. She makes the case that writers, craftsmen and craftswomen, like Nevil Shute, Bernard Malamud, Elizabeth Taylor, Robertson Davies are largely forgotten by the reading community today. Interestingly enough, I have several books by all these writers in my personal library. I am the consummate pursuer of writers, exactly like Shute, who have been relegated to the past, left for dead, but who are in need of a resurrection with a new generation of readers. He has certainly left his mark on me. I think about Shute’s book On the Beach at least once a week. It is one of my favorite post-apocalyptic books. I have a feeling I will be similarly haunted by A Town Like Alice.

In her eagerness for me tor me to read it, my grandmother actually sent me two copies of the book. With one of them she included this article about Jane Austen – not sure what the relation was. I do hope that if you are reading this for the first time that you too love its gripping tale. If you are revisiting it, I hope a re-reading brings an increased appreciation of its excellent story-telling and that it makes you think about how much Australia has changed in the last seventy years.Of course, the portrayal of aboriginal people and other people of non-white extraction is a reflection of the racism of the time that the book was written, and one of the reasons i didn't like this book better. But there was something else that irked me: in the first part of the story, part of the message seemed to have been that the main character learned about how silly attitudes of cultural superiority are. In the second part of the book, this is somewhat forgotten or set aside. This may have been because the story was not told from Jean's perspective entirely, but still it felt like an odd break in the story. Too right. It's a right crook affair." By all means, be welcome to those sentiments if you have succumbed to the cynicism of our supposedly modern world. Shute’s writing style is crisp, concise, and straightforward. There is romance, but he presents it in such a practical fashion that the plot never bogs down in the melodrama of star crossed lovers. ”But Shute was a storytelling craftsman to his bones; an aeronautics obsessive-- there are very few authors who are also excellent engineers. He never constructs a lazy or shoddy sentence, any more than he’d have let the wings fall off one of his aeroplanes.” Thumim, Janet. "The popular cash and culture in the postwar British cinema industry". Screen. Vol.32, no.3. p.259.

It all seems so remote, as if it was something that happened to another person, years ago – something that you’d read in a book. As if it wasn’t me at all.”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. I have just been told that I've rated A Town Like Alice with only 3 stars. Actually I was merely giving a status update not a star rating. So, to put matters right and keep all the Shutists happy, I have upgraded it to five stars as I know it is a wonderful book and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Nevil Shute has been one of my heroes since I was a teenager and I have written a lot about him in my own book where he is a major player and very lovable. So, apologies to you Nevil up there in your big silver airship R100 in the heavens--an awesome machine! Anyway, The first half of the book is great, the second less so, which is mostly because the first half is a story in its own right and the second half takes away from it. Again, I'm seriously confused why Shute did this. Did he attempt an epic saga and fail? FINCH'S BIG CHANCE IN U.K. FILM". Sunday Times. Perth. 16 January 1955. p.38 . Retrieved 7 July 2012– via National Library of Australia.

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. This novel had been lying about my house in India for a long time: an old copy somebody abandoned (I couldn't even recognise the name written on the cover). Old houses gather books like they do other things (moth-eaten clothes, faded photographs and chipped chinaware). This vacation, it kept on intruding itself into my consciousness so I said What the hell! and finally decided to read it. The story’s narrator is the elderly solicitor in charge of the trust fund. He becomes an important element of the story and a character you’re going to like! No more clues will I give here.

by Nevil Shute

Nevil Shute: A Biography by Julian Smith National Library of Australia free public access to books in Australian libraries. Due to her courageous spirit and ability to speak Malay, Jean takes on the role of leader of the sorry gaggle of prisoners and many end up owing their lives to her indomitable spirit. While on the march, the group run into some Australian prisoners, one of whom, Joe Harman, helps them steal some food, and is horrifically punished by the Japanese as a result.