A Town Like Alice

Initially, I was totally captivated by this story of Jean Padgett, a young English woman working in Malaya who became a Japanese prisoner of war. The hardships that the women and children endured during their trek to one nonexistent prison camp after another and the alternating kindness and inhumanity of their captors kept me reading (well, listening; this was an audiobook) at a rapid pace. Under such an unlikely circumstances, one wouldn't expect to fall in love, but we do sense that it is happening to Jean when she means a resourceful Australian named Joe Harmon. But the war intervenes . . .

The novel opens with the narrator, a solicitor, tracking down Jean to tell her that she has just come into an inheritance, and it is to Noah that Jean tells her story. After hearing all she endured, he could hardly be more surprised when Jean tells him her plans for the money: to return to Malaya.

I won't spoil the book by telling what happens next, but there are quite a few surprises in store. I have to admit that the last third of the novel--the part that reflects the title--was somewhat less interesting to me. Still, this is one of those books whose title was familiar but about which I knew nothing, and overall, it was worthwhile.

Very well read by Neil Hunt. He does the accents well and isn't roo heavy-handed in reading the female roles.

800 women are forced to walk 1200 miles by the Japanese in Malaysia/Sumatra and 30 survive the ordeal. The British, Dutch and assorted other women were captured by the Japanese with the fall of Malaya and Dutch Indochina unfortunately because they were civilian, history forgot about their ordeal as POWs. This story, based the first part of the story by featuring a British woman during the marching ordeal and tells her story as a historical novel. The second part of the story tell of what happened to her after the war. The courage she showed to survive and the development of her leadership and negotiation skills in helping others to also survive is a good foundation for what she does after the war. She goes to England and works for 3 years and her great uncle dies and leaves her a trust. She then goes to Malaysia and builds a well to help the villagers that help her during the war and then off to Australia to find a Aussie solder that helped them. She stay in Australia and becomes a business women. The skills learned during the war helps her in Queensland outback. This story provides many lessons for those who want to learn and a great story for those who want entertainment. Neil Hunt did a great job with all the accent narrating this story. You will enjoy this book.

The story has stuck with me/taught/informed about a time I did not know about.
Went out with some friends from Australia - they could not get over that I did not know the book 1951 and I did not feel it dated. Just explains so much about a country and humans.

I really enjoyed this book and was surprised that it was written long ago. A good book to listen to while children are in the car. Loved the Australian accents but some of the Aussie slang was very repetitive.

Yes, I would recommend this audiobook highly. The storyline was interesting and I liked the historical aspect of the book. The narration was excellent.

Top 5. I loved everything about this book and presentation!

When Jean begins to think about making shoes.

The "Trustee" who narrates the story.

Neil Hunt did a fabulous job on this. I would listen to this again!!

This is a wonderful book! I love that it describes and interesting part of history that I had never heard about. The narrator does a good job of differentiating the characters and bringing them to life. The characters are great. They are fully fleshed out and interesting, and I really cared about what happened to them, which to me is the mark of a good book.

Nevil Shute wrote this book based on a real situation that occurred during WW2 when the Japanese treated their prisoners of war, especially the women, despicably. They forced the women to walk from location to location with no support or supplies, counting on their dying of the ordeal, eliminating the "problem" for the Japanese.
Nevil Shute winds a complicated and emotional story around this event. What I especially enjoy in Shute's books is the vast pot of knowledge he obviously draws on to include interesting and little-known facts into his narrative. In this book, for example, he talks about a Japanese custom of allowing a dying prisoner to make one dying wish. If the wish cannot be fulfilled, as is the case in the book, the prisoner must be rescued and restored to health, if possible. (I hope this custom is true, but perhaps Shute made it up. If anybody knows for sure, one way or another, I'd love to hear.)
I plan to slowly make my way through all of Shute's books.

The first half of this book is good from there it goes to very boring with one to many bad Australian accents

Fairly good book. Got a little boring at times but overall, not bad.