SLIDE RULE - Hardcover

Shute, Nevil

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434699314 ISBN 13: 9780434699315

Publisher: Random House UK, 1998

Synopsis

Nevil Shute’s autobiographical work charts his selected remembrances from childhood to 1938. The parallels between Shute’s life and his fiction can be seen: airship engineering, the new industry of commercial aircraft and his experience of civil servants and bureaucratic military agencies. A-14

About this title

About the Author

Nevil Shute Norway was born in London and worked as an aeronautical engineer at Vickers before setting up his own airship company. Worried that his reputation as a fiction writer would damage his engineering career, he wrote without using his surname. He served in both world wars and was a commander in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in World War II, working on secret projects. After the war he became a full time author completing a fictionalised account of his war time experience in 'Most Secret'. Moving to Australia in 1949 he based seven of his novels against that background including his most successful title On The Beach. This was subsequently a hugely successful film starring Gregory Peck, Antony Perkins and Ava Gardner and became arguably the major after the bomb movie of all time. Shute became one of the top selling authors of the 50s and 60s with wide appeal to a broad international market attracted by strong story lines which were always meticulously researched..

From AudioFile

In America, Nevil Shute--British aeronautical engineer turned esteemed novelist--is best known for the bestselling ON THE BEACH, in which Aussies go gently into a nuclear good night. This, his autobiography, goes equally gently into his life and time, from birth to the threshold of WWII. And stuffily, too, at least as interpreted by narrator Michael Tudor Barnes. Though affecting considerable enthusiasm, Barnes fails to make it infectious. He even underplays or misses much of the humor, thus further reducing whatever charm the original possesses. Still, one can admire the lean, precise writing and historical color. Y.R. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House UK
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0434699314
• ISBN 13: 9780434699315
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240