Nevil Shute was a favourite of mine as a teenager when I found books like Requiem for a Wren & A Town Like Alice lurking on my parents bookshelves. I’ve been disappointed by reading other Shute books as as adult but had never read this one and it’s reissue as a “Vintage Classic” was enough to make me try it.

The setting is post nuclear war Australia with the northern hemisphere wiped out and radiation sickness slowly creeping down to wipe out the southern hemisphere too. As is usual in Shute’s books middle class naval types carry on with their everyday lives in strange circumstances.

I’m not sure whether it’s really an enduring classic of literature, but it is a good yarn, rather dated but probably better for it. I found it a good read and it made me cry a lot.