Shute Nevil. On the Beach

Vintage, 2009. First published 1957Shute's best-known novel. The story of how people in Australia react to their approaching death from radioactive clouds caused by a nuclear war. Captain Dwight Towers, the commander of an American nuclear submarine, arrives in Australia with his crew, the last survivors from the northern hemisphere. He and Moira, an Australian beauty, share their last days together in a chaste relationship, as Dwight remains true to his wife who died in the early days of the war.