A Town Like Alice
by
In Nevil Shute’s 1950 novel, later made into a film, a young Englishwoman working as a secretary in what was then known as Malaya before being embroiled in WWII becomes involved with an Australian fellow prisoner of war. After the war is over, she decides to emigrate to Australia to find him then uses a legacy and her entrepreneurial skills to build up a town in the outback. A sweet old-fashioned read that, nonetheless, pulls no wool over its readers’ eyes.