Kindling

by Nevil Shute

When Henry Warren, director of an English bank, lands by chance in a hospital in a bleak Northern town that has been ruined by the closure of its shipyard, he discovers nothing less than a new purpose for his life. Moved by the fate of the town's inhabitants, Warren risks his fortune and reputation to save the shipyard and restore the town to its former prosperity. In seeking to change the fate of the town, he radically changes his own.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Classics, British Literature, Literary Fiction, Literature, Audiobook

299 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Nevil Shute Norway was a popular British novelist and a successful aeronautical engineer.

He used Nevil Shute as his pen name, and his full name in his engineering career, in order to protect his engineering career from any potential negative publicity in connection with his novels.

He lived in Australia for the ten years before his death.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful wonderful wonderful book by Nevil Shute. Ruined City is what city financier / investment banker Henry Warren, heading towards a mid-life crisis, finds when he requires an important medical operation in the dying fictional Northumberland town of Sharples. Warren looking inwards and outwards makes a decision that could change Sharples and his own life forever. Wonderful read, wonderful book. Reading Shute's work makes me feel like when I sit down to watch a black and white movie and am then blown way by just how good it is! 8 out of 12., Four Stars :)

2013 read

[Jaline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ruined City is a novel that Nevil Shute wrote in 1938, just 12 years after his first novel was published. This story and the style of his writing take a great leap from his previous works. I enjoyed all three of his previous novels immensely, although this one is still a cut above.

The story is fascinating, although it started out so deeply involved in the protagonist’s life, and Mr. Warren’s life is so jammed with work that it was far from relaxing. At first.

Mr. Warren is a banker and he also functioned as a start-up financier for companies as well as a negotiator on inter-country business deals. The pace is brutal and although he appeared to thrive on it, his marriage gave way and so did his health. Mr. Warren leaves everything behind him and vanishes from his former life for a time.

Then, an accident, along with an adopted identity far removed from his real life work together to form an epiphany. This launches him onto a path that he never thought he would take. It is risky, even dangerous, yet Mr. Warren is convinced that it is what he was meant to do – and he is determined to do it, no matter the personal cost.

This novel is captivating in its depiction of a turning point in one man’s life that also affects a small city and the thousands of people living there. There is a moral quandary, and despite the route taken and its consequences, it also shows how determination to accomplish the impossible can result in both success and failure sharing the same space.

Brilliantly written, this novel displays a maturity in Nevil Shute’s writing that is a foreshadowing of the depths of some of his later works. The characters we meet are nicely developed all around, but the real star and sinner in the person of Mr. Warren is the centerpiece. His progression and growth while maintaining the essence of who he is makes this novel both awe-inspiring and infinitely satisfying.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up

The “ruined city” of the title is a port city in northern England and it is set during a time of depression. This is a dying city where employment is no longer available. People are hungry and unhealthy. The city is desolate and quiet. In better times it was a noisy city with the riveters blasting all the time and people walking, shopping and enjoying their lives. But those days are long gone. Henry Warren, a rich banker, ends up in this town by chance, hospitalized and in need of an operation. He has his operation and spends several weeks in hospital recuperating. During this time the staff take good care of him and he learns about why the city is so desolate and why there are no jobs. He is so grateful for their help, generosity and kindness during his hospital stay that he wants very much to help the people in this city.

The usual Shute set up is that a man is living his life until something happens and he must go on a journey or take on a task that is risky and way out of his comfort zone. This is another such story except that the task is somewhat in his comfort zone in that it involves banking and knowledge of big finance which happens to be his profession. The only difference is that the task is bigger than anything he has done in the past, putting a whole city back on it’s feet again which involves getting orders for ships to be built by the people in this port city. This ends up being risky and not just financially so. Warren travels to a far off country and several interesting characters become involved in his scheme. It’s a terrific story and wonderful to watch as Warren calmly and surely goes about his business, dealing with difficult and potentially dangerous characters. I loved Warren’s sureness, his knowhow and calm in all of his dealing. There are some surprises along the way that I enjoyed tremendously.

The thing that put this book at 3.5 stars for me was the constant talk about finances was very boring for me. Clearly, it was necessary for the story, but that didn’t make it any easier for me to read. I did a bit of skimming…

All in all, another feel good Shute story. If you don’t mind endless talk about finances this is a novel you will enjoy.

[Andy Marr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally excellent, but spoiled slightly by the ridiculous fairy-tale section in which a trio of cabaret dancers help push through a huge international trade deal between the UK and some small (and fictional) Soviet country.

[L A i N E Y (will be back) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the characters well enough and found the writing to be good. But the financial aspect was so tedious to my brain that I started to skim those parts where they negotiated and talked money while normally their maneuvers would have been fun and a good way to get a glimpse into their minds but I just couldn’t here. Bummer.

I love how incredibly chill Warren was about going to prison and being lock up for years(!) That was certainly not how normal people react in that situation. Heh.

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nevil Shute is a pro at inventing feel-good stories anchored in reality. What happens leaves the reader felling happy and satisfied with the knowledge that what does happen could happen. People are shown as mixtures of good and bad, albeit with a heavy dose of the good.

The book was first published in 1938 during the Depression, and so Shute writes about what he saw happening around him. He sets the story in a fictitious port city of northern England. Its shipyard, once a source of employment for many, has closed. We observe the “death of the city” and the subsequent hardships that arise for its inhabitants, that is to say those who remain. Who are they? Either they are those of the lucky few who have a job to fall back on or the poor who lack the financial means to pick themselves up and leave. The “ruined city” of the title is this dying city where employment is no longer available.

Enter the story’s central protagonist-- Henry Warren. He is in his forties, married, well- educated and of high social standing. He is a wealthy financier, an expert working with the establishment of new firms, an expert in the art of floating firms on the stock exchange. His life must be rosy, right? No! He is a workaholic, cannot sleep without pills and suffers from abdominal pains that progressively grow worse. And he is a cuckold! Making an ultimatum to his wife, he demands that if they are to stay married, she must change her ways. Divorce is her choice. His life is in tatters. Clearly wealth and high standing does not bring happiness. And so, we watch what he does. More I will not tell you except to say that he finds people who show true kindness to him.

The financial dealings are somewhat boring at times, but without the financial details the story wouldn’t be as credible as it is. There is a love tangent that is drawn credibly too.

I could pretty much guess how the story would end. For me what was interesting was to see how Shute would tie up the strings and make the events believable without falling into the realm of fantasy.

Gareth Armstrong narrates the audiobook very well. Every word spoken is clear. The pace is perfect, which for me means not fast. I want a story read calmly. The narration fits the tale wonderfully—both are simple and easy to follow. Four stars for the narration.

Neil Shute writes books of a particular style. They are realistic, have an uplifting message and often have details that border on being tedious. If you have liked his other books, you will like this.

******************
*Beyond The Black Stump 4 stars
*The Far Country 4 stars
*Pied Piper 3 stars
*The Rainbow and the Rose 3 stars
*Trustee from the Toolroom 3 stars
*Ruined City 3 stars
*Requiem for a Wren 2 stars
*Pastoral 1 star
*A Town Like Alice TBR
*An Old Captivity TBR

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Few writers could turn a book about investment banking, unemployment and governemnt corruption into a beautiful romance about second chances and the triumph of the human spirit, of cooperation and common sense. Ruined City can be resumed as a cross between Frank Capra's Mr Deeds Goes to Town and Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru . Capra provides the well intended man who uses his money and power to help those struck down in the depression and is brought to trial for his efforts, Kurosawa provides the civil servant questioning his priorities in life when he comes face to face with his own mortality. Nevil Shute's protagonist, Henry Warren, is one of the biggest bankers in the City at the time England was suffering from the effects of the Great Depression. He is a workaholic, not so much obsessed as passionate and dedicated to his job. In one of the opening scenes, he refuses to grant a loan to a suffering city council, as he considers the risks to high:

We take in money on deposit, and it is my business to keep that money safe. We lend it out again at small interest on good security. It is no part of our business to take risks, or to make speculations with the money deposited with us. That is not our understanding with our depositors, and that is not our policy.

Dry, analytical, cold hearted, Warren is dealing with facts, not with emotions. Or so he believed at that moment of his banking career.
His 14 hours workdays, his endless journeys to unblock difficult contracts in the country and on the Continent, the stress of finding out his wife is carrying out an affair, all lead Warren to physical collapse in a remote spot of Northern England. Sharples is the ghost town from the title, whose single shipbuilding industry folded down in the recession. There's no work, no food, nothing to look forward to. Almost half of the patients in the hospital die after an operation, from complications resulted from anemy and despair.

Warren finds a new scope in life in his effort to bring the city of Sharples back to life. It is a daunting task, as the Depression is extended to all industrial sectors and to most of the countries in the world. For all the melodrama of the subject, Nevil Shute proves once again that he has the delicate touch and the understated strength of character to carry it to its conclusion.

Warren is ready to sacrifice his wealth, his good name in the business circles and his long held moral principles for a cause that he considers noble and just :

One can't just give up working, and do nothing. And so one's got to find a motive, an excuse for going on doing the job one knows. I had time to think about all this when I was here in the hospital. I was right away from it then, able to see my job from the outside. And it seemed to me, as it does now, that there's only one thing really worth working for in the City. That's to create work. [...] I believe that that's the thing most worth doing in this modern world. To create jobs that men can work at, and be proud of, and make money by their work. There's no dignity. no decency, or health today for men that haven't got a job. All other things depend on work today: without work men are utterly undone.

The book was written in 1938, and it may not be as polished and well plotted as his latter books, but the fundamental themes of respect for the professional man, faith in the basic goodness of his fellows and self sacrifice will be constant companions in all of his later books. I believe the second part of A Town Like Alice is revisiting this subject of putting money to work for helping the less fortunate and is a good companion to the present book.

There's even time for a bit of romance and a touch of humor to relieve the serious themes of the book. Warren is tentatively getting his heart open to a girl in the hospital, and a running joke has every inhabitant of Sharples explain to Warren :

"There was seven Barlow destroyers at the Battle of Jutland. Did ye ever hear that?"

Some of the humor didn't sit as well in my stomach, and is the reason I cut down one star. Shute is quite vicious in his portrayal of an imaginary Balkan state where every official is corrupted and greedy and uneducated. My view of corruption, coming from a native of the Balkans, would make the giver just as guilty as the asker in the matter of bribes in the race to obtain unfair advantages in contracts. In Nevile Shute's defense, he probably had some direct experience of the difficulties in starting a new business venture. His biography says something about a couple of his companies that failed.

I will close my review with the observation that this book is of painful actuality to us in 2013 : We are just coming out of a severe economic depression, unemployment is at record levels in Europe and elsewhere, 'banker' has become a dirty word and the right to work, to a decent salary and a decent life has become an unattainable dream for far too many people. It is refreshing to read about a generation that considered it right and proper for a banker to go to jail for misleading his investors and making false declarations .

[K.J. Charles]

NoAbsolutely fascinating novel set in the Depression era. A high financier has a personal crisis that leads him to a destroyed Scottish shipbuilding town that's been jobless for five years, and sets out to revive the shipyard and thus the town and its people the only way he knows how: financial wheeler dealing, with underwriting, prospectuses, and dodgy meetings with bribable foreigners.

What's terrific about this is, Warren is very clearly a crook who is selling dodgy stock. It's not entirely a scam, the yard will make money eventually, but his means of raising the colossal sums needed and getting the Ruritanian business are completely dishonest because that's literally the only means available to him under capitalism. The meagre government dole is killing people, the government isn't prepared to invest the sums needed and government officials are at best ineffectual throughout (FDR's New Deal is very obviously what was needed but not happening). I actually can't tell if this book is capitalist or anti-capitalist or what. Warren does something when something needs doing, that's all (a strong theme here is of human decency paying dividends), and he does a lot of it via hanging out in dodgy nightclubs.

Fascinating, including in the fate of some side characters, and massively readable, EXCEPT "period attitudes" which is to say some horrendous racism in the opening chapters, and of course the portrayal of the eastern European banana republic full of dodgy geezers.

[Oblomov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Year of New Authors

Parents! Are your children talking of 'owning the libs' and the evils of socialism, despite lacking even a dictionary definition of the word? Have they been joining libertarian groups and hiding copies of Atlas Shrugged under their bed? Than your child may have been sucked into the dangerous sub-culture of Neo-Capitalism. So many bright young minds are lost to this destructive ideology, mindlessly revering 'boot strap' entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, forgetting one is a parasite forcing workers to piss in bottles and the other claims government subsidies.
But have no fear! Your child's psyche may yet be saved by Ruined City TM! One simple application of Ruined City, applied directly to the eyeballs or hard to the temple, will alter their perception of the ponzi scheme of neo-capitalism and lead them back to a normal healthy cynicism. Have comfortable dinner conversations again and try Ruined City today!


Sorry, that was far too long a stupid preamble, but I was enjoying myself.
Henry is a sucessful banker, outrageously rich and rubbing shoulders with the highest of opulent society. All seems perfect, save for the fact his wife is shagging an Arabian Prince. Divourcing, Henry has a mid-life crisis and decides to take a hike up north, where bad luck has him waking up in the hospital of Sharples, a desolate former ship building town that his London finance buddies left to rot. Surrounded by misery, hopelessness and terribly written 'howay man, yer fookin' radgey' accents, Henry thinks it's about time he used his money and experience to give something back.

Ruined City really is an antithesis to the likes of Rand and Milton Friedman, as every problem suffered by the town of Sharples is the direct result of capitalism, and all of Henry's attempts to save it has to be done by breaking the legal rules of commerce. Bribes, illicit meetings in girly bars and outright lies are the only way he can bring hope and work to Sharples, with all the traditional and 'right' routes of the capitalist system closed off to the innocent, starving townsfolk. It's a stunningly heartfelt tale of problems inherent in the system, with welfare ignoring dignity in its monetary calculations, the North/South divide in England, the effect of economic depression on health and the utter lack of conscience that arises when figures are discussed above humanity.

While it's set in a time following the Wall Street Crash and with a heavy industry that no longer exists in England since the Thatcher years, there is something still rather timeless about the book, as the problems of dying towns persists and the bankers and CEOs are as heartless as ever. Admittedly, there's also a few things that haven't aged well, such as racist comments, some classism and Shute's insistence on calling a thirty year old woman a girl.

Nevetheless, if you've read Rand and utterly loved it, I genuinely think you should read Ruined City immediately, because it's a great counter-argument and everything in it feels more real and isn't propped up on straw stuffed pillars. Moving, engrossing and always keeping your attention, even when it goes head long into hard finance, this is a superb tale that forces you to think of the lives behind the ticking decimals of the stock market.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Warren frowned. 'Surely the public assistance rates aren't so bad as that? They're revised from time to time, aren't they? You don't just have to starve?'
She shook her head. 'No, you don't have to starve. The rates are all right--in theory, Mr. Warren. You can keep alive and fit on P.A.C. relief--if you happen to have been born an archangel.'
'What do you mean?'
She stopped and faced him. 'It's like this. There's really nothing wrong with the rates of relief. If you are careful, and wise, and prudent, you can live on that amount of money fairly well. And you've got to be intelligent, and well educated, too, and rather selfish. If you were like that you'd get along all right--but you wouldn't have a penny to spare.'
She paused. 'But if you were human--well, you'd be for it. If you got bored stiff with doing nothing so that you went and blued fourpence on going to the pictures--you just wouldn't have enough to eat that week. Or if you couldn't cook very well, and spoiled the food a bit, you'd go hungry. You'd go hungry if your wife had a birthday and you wanted to give her a little present costing a bob--you'd only get eighty percent of your food that week. And of course, if your wife gets ill and you want to buy her little fancy bits of things...' (72-3).

'I had time to think about all this when I was here in hospital. I was right away from it then, able to see my job from the outside. And it seemed to me then, as it does now, that there's only one thing really worth working for in the City. That's to create work.
'I don't know if you've ever thought about machines,' he said. 'Every machine that's put into a factory displaces labour. That's a very old story, of course. The man who's put to work the machine isn't any better off than he was before; the three men that are thrown out of a job are very much worse off....The cure is for somebody to buckle to and make a job for the three men.
'I believe that that's the thing most worth doing in this modern world,' he said quietly. 'To create jobs that men can work at, and be proud of, and make money by their work. There's no dignity, no decency, or health today for men that haven't got a job. All other things depend on work today: without work men are utterly undone' (167).

[Tom Mathews · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first Nevil Shute book other than On the Beach and an intriguing book it is. It's a rare book that succeeds in telling its story without resorting to violence on one side or an overabundance of sentimentality on the other. Ruined City manages to do just that with this story of sacrifice and redemption set in during the worst years of the Great Depression.

Henry Warren is a successful and well regarded London banker who heads up to the north of England for a walkabout when his marriage falls apart. Felled by acute peritonitis during his rambles, he wakes up in hospital in a Northumberland town that has been severely hit by the depression. Mistaken for an itinerant laborer, Warren sees life from a new perspective and vows to do what he can to help. But turning around the economy of a town that is already circling the drain is no easy task, as well he knows, and Warren put his financial expertise to work on a risky plan that, if it fails, could ruin not only the town of Sharples, but Warren himself. The plot threatens to get a bit thick at times when Shute takes his readers into the world of international trade and finance but it redeems itself with its well-developed characters.

3.5 stars

FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
*4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.
*3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.
*2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending.
*1 Star - The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire.

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nevil Shute deserves to be much more widely read.
He reminds me a little of W. Somerset Maugham, the writing is plain, meat and potato prose with no fancy flourishes or, God help us, brilliant innovations of technique. The stories are told simply but effectively and there is a real insight into humanity and life, that great journey from womb to tomb that we all undertake.
Nevil Shute is probably much more of an optimist and has a higher, but still realistic, opinion about humanity than W. Somerset Maugham did.
This novel is set during the great depression of the 1930's. A banker from London who is starting to question what the point of all his work and striving is sees the terrible grim reality of a northern industrial town and decides to do something about it.
I enjoyed every minute of this and will continue to work my way through the rest of Nevil Shute's work.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

When is it right to do wrong? Can a crime be justified if the results help others and not oneself? It's the Robin Hood question and Shute sets his own morality play in the depression of the 1930s to pose the question....What is the greater good, to play by the rules or to bend them to help those who can't help themselves? Financier Henry Warren unexpectedly confronts life in the industrial desert of Northern England and comes up with his own maverick solution to the woes of a jobless ship-building town. The voice of this novel might jar a little in the PC Britain of the 21st century, but the economic setting and the moral dilemma are surprisingly current.

[David Dennington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published as KINDLING in the USA

This delightful story is set in Depression-worn England—with references to the Clyde in Scotland. Henry Warren’s life is falling apart. He is working too hard as a rich banker and his wife has become bored with him and is playing around with unsavoury ‘gentlemen’. After deciding to get shot of her he goes north to walk the hills and dales to get his head straight and his body in shape. He winds up desperately ill in hospital in the fictitious town of Sharples, previously a shipbuilding town. But now, the sound of the riveting and pounding steel (once music to the ears), is no more. The yards, mills and mines are silent; all around nothing but silence, hunger and misery.
After a successful operation, Warren decides to do something. He’s a compassionate Conservative—not just a filthy Capitalist (a frequent Nevil Shute theme). Without giving too much away, Warren goes to extraordinary lengths to help the town that had saved his life and by the end I was cheering, I have to say. Hence I had to give this book five stars. If a book can move you emotionally, then I think it is powerful. I judge a book by how much I enjoy it more than anything—as well as new things I learn. I’d love to see this story made into a film—it would make a nice period piece, and the scenes in the Balkans might be reminiscent of ‘Casablanca’.

This book tells us as much about Nevil Shute himself as his hero, Henry Warren. Much of Shute’s experience in the town of Howden during the 1920’s whilst he was building Airship R100 with his boss, Barnes Wallis, shows through, as does his experience with the company he started in the 1930’s—Airspeed. He started that business from scratch and it rivaled Vickers, which I find pretty astonishing. Henry Warren, like Nevil Shute, himself, is a pretty decent sort. I know that Shute suffered a lot, worrying about what would happen to the hundreds of men on his payroll if Airspeed failed. Knowledge of finance and banking learned during his ‘Airspeed Days’ also come into play in Ruined City. At one point Henry Warren tells ‘the girl’ that he needs to get out of the business—there are ‘starters’and there are ‘runners’—‘I am now a liability’. That was profound to me. That’s exactly what happened to Nevil. When Airspeed had become so big, the bigshots in the financial world declared that, ‘It is time for Nevil Shute Norway to go’. And he did. He got the boot.
Ruined City tells of how a man with the means and the will can make life better for others, even when odds are overwhelming, and even when a term in jail might be on the cards.

[Gerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nevil Shute is one of my favorite authors. Ruined City began a little slow but picked up quickly. A fairly young and very successful, workaholic financier Henry Warren realizes that his failing marriage is about to come to an end. The latter issue disturbs him very little, but he grows very concerned about his poor physical condition which is the result of his having driven himself extremely hard to reach the level of success that he has. He knows that he gets very little exercise and vows to make radical changes in his lifestyle. He has his chauffeur drive him from his London home about 300 miles north and drop him off for an undetermined period of time near the vicinity of Newcastle near the northeast coast, not far from the border with Scotland. It is from there that he begins his new routine of walking 20 miles per day. Following a week or so of this, when he is beginning to feel like a changed man, he experiences a severe intestinal attack. He is taken to a local hospital in the small town of Sharples in a delirious condition. He must have an immediate operation to relieve the obstruction. Unshaven for the week he has been walking, with little money on him, and having lost his identification, he is taken for an unemployed, homeless man. When he realizes this following his successful operation, he decides not to disabuse them right away of this extremely incorrect assumption and instead welcomes the anonymity that such circumstances provide him.

During his six weeks of post-operative recovery, he learns much about the town and people of his once-prosperous town. The local shipyard has been closed for more than five years along with the rolling mills and mine. After these primary employers closed their doors, the majority of the small businesses that existed in prosperous times had no choice but to close also with the vast majority of the local workforce being unemployed. He learns a great deal by just observing the “gaunt and listless” fellow patients, hearing them talk as if there is nothing worth living for, and noting that there seems to be a rather high mortality rate. He talks with the hospital almoner, i.e., social worker, Miss McMahon and learns that so much of this is due simply to lack of proper nutrition because they have so very little money. She tells him of what Sharples was like prior to the widespread unemployment. When he asked her why she doesn’t leave, she said because it is her home and because she firmly believes that prosperity will return in some manner.

As he reaching this end of his recovery period, he asks Miss McMahon if she can arrange for him look at the closed shipyard, rolling mills, and mine. She does arrange this, although she is quite puzzled as to why he, as an unemployed clerk (so she thinks), wants to do such a thing. He is finally discharged so he can continue his supposed search for employment. He promises Miss McMahon in writing to begin paying off his hospital bill as soon as he is employed again.

On his way back to London he realizes that he has found his new reason to continuing working instead of retiring. He vows that he will do everything in his power to become the catalyst that will result in prosperity returning to the economically dead city of Sharples. He immediately begins this “heroic gamble” at very substantial risk to his extensive fortune and impeccable reputation.

Nevil Shute is a wonderful storyteller and this tale is no exception. While not among my top favorites of his novels, Ruined City is quite good, and I do give it a very favorable recommendation.

[Book 62 of revised 2012 target 70 (Jan-10; Feb-11; Mar-9; Apr-8; May-7; Jun-8; Jul-7; Aug-2)]

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, a book for our time too! Nevil Shute's story is about whether companies should put workers first or investors first.

This is a timeless story about an effort to put the people of a city back to work in manufacturing when the economy of the place has all but dried up and social assistance and debt are the only things keeping the place and its people alive at all.

The protagonist,a banker and financier, realizes that "There's only only one thing really worth working for in the City. That's to create work. . . . the thing most worth doing in this modern world [is to] create jobs that men can work at, and be proud of, and make money by their work. There's no dignity, no decency, or health today for men that haven't got a job. All other things depend on work today; without work men are utterly undone".

Not a straightforward feel-good, redemption story of the typical sort. The protagonist admits that though his intentions are good his methods (if they are to succeed) can not be because of the tension between serving investors and creating work where industry has failed once before . . . he says "Nobody's going to get that Yard working again and keep his hands clean" and that's what the story's about -who takes the risk, and why in a capitalist system sometimes somebody has to take a fall when you turn a place and the lives of its people around. .

[Leftbanker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like the only other novel I have read by Nevil Shute, Trustee from the Toolroom, , Ruined City, is nothing less than a modern fairy tale, and a really good one. In this happy tale Shute seems to conger the ghosts of Robin Hood and John Maynard Keynes and heavily emphasizes the importance of deficit spending in times of crisis, a lesson American Republicans forgot altogether when the President Obama was attempting to pull the U.S. economy out of the toilet their party had throw us into.

The novel celebrates the triumph of decency, something which would be corny in the hands of a less skillful storyteller. After just two of his books I have become a follower of his brand of optimism.

[Darius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Think of someone with a long and successful career: judged by his peers to be exceptionally competent and successful in his field, and to be a person of impeccable integrity. Imagine though, that -- years into his career -- with his childless marriage about to dissipate in a whiff of growing non-involvement -- he questions the point of it all.

The author confronts this protagonist with a situation where he can help a lot of people, if he brings his competence to bear. However, there is no monetary gain for him. And worse, to achieve his end, he has to tip-toe around the law. Worse still, the only way he can achieve his end is to spend his hence well-deserved reputation for integrity and making sensible investments. He has to use that reputation in a borderline fraudulent way, so others follow him into what is actually a financially risky venture.

What does our protagonist do? It's an interesting story, albeit a bit light.

Shute also explores the role a single competent individual can play in changing the economic landscape of a town: the role of the entrepreneur. But, the details are fairly light compared to his later exploration in part-2 of "A Town Like Alice".

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nevil Shute wrote this on the back of his own experiences in floating and running a company. He succeeds (as usual) in involving the reader in a story that in lesser hands would have been dry and dull. Builds to quite an emotional ending.
Shute was visionary in several of the books he wrote, accurately foretelling, or bleakly warning, of events in the near future. It is ironic that the ship building industry in Britain at the time of this novel was about to collapse due to the superiority of welding over riveting.

[Glen Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary for such a ordinary story. Very human and very worth reading. Read it, then read it again. Note: Also published as “Ruined City”

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting book for adult readers. The main character uses his expertise to help a city in England to be renewed after WWI. He has to sacrifice to do so!

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very satisfying read. A story set in the depression, 1934 England. Henry Warren a very successful and respected banker in London, experiences what could be called a mid life crisis. This is brought on by several factors: his diligence in his very stressful job extending into 14 hour a day work, his estranged relationship with his wife who he discovers is having an affair and poor eating and exercise. All combine to bring about his sudden decision to head north and walk.

During his days of walking he becomes very ill and ends up in hospital undergoing emergency surgery. The town where he has landed is Sharples, a victim of the depression where the entire male population of working age are unemployed and desolate. Warren notices during his hospital recovery that 40% of the men in his ward die. Undernourishment, depression and poverty grip the city and the shipyard lies dormant.

This sets the scene for a very engaging read as Warren uses his banking business skills to try and bring life back to the people of Sharples.

There is lengthy financial and international dealings which in themselves would not keep me interested. However Shute weaves his magic with characters who are engaging in their colourful humanity, some endearing and others unlikable.

This story brings to the for the common dilemma good, moral people have in business. I thought Shute handled this part of the story expertly. His sense of time and place again show what a masterful writer he is. The setting a few years before the Second World War is not insignificant in this plot.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading On the Beach, I thought I would try to read more of Nevil Shute, and I was very glad I picked up Ruined City (which has been re-titled Kindling) in a second hand shop.
Both of these books have universal themes and are quite relevant.
Main character Henry Warren, a wealthy banker sees closeup what the Depression has done to a Northern England coastal town. A once thriving shipbuilding town is now filled with unemployed men, half-starving children, and a shipyard that is slowly disintegrating.
Warren sees the potential of what this town could be again, and decides to do something about it.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like A Town Like Alice, this is about reviving the fortunes of a town, though the town and the story are very different. Started off unbearably depressing and I wished I'd picked something else to take on holiday, but quickly became a feelgood read as banker Warren, faced with the very real results of the kind of decisions he's used to making at work, decides to fix the town of Barlow by bringing its shipyard, five years abandoned, back to life.

[Ayesha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Similar to a Town Like Alice, without the romantic intrigue. This novel also explores the effects of a poor economy on the psychology of its people. In this case it was a once booming town hit by the depression, rather than, as was the case in a Town Like Alice, a dust bowl. Both explore methodical inspiration and what one person, with means, can do for an entire town. Well worth the read, short and insightful.

[Vikas Datta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful tale of redemption, and how a determined man can make a difference, regardless of the costs - Mr Shute so effortlessly depicts the world of high finance (and all the hijinks it entails) that you can be forgiven for thinking he was born to it..

[Beau Stucki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it would be easy to dismiss the gentle coziness of Shute's simple prose as a lack of insight, but his moral puzzles and observations land where he wants them to land. I suspect this is a book that will give more upon reflection.

[Sivasubramanian Sivasuriyanarayanan]

another lovable book by Nevil Shute. Readd it for the first time many years back. Read it for the second time when my daughter did her M Phil.

[Roaa oud · Rating 4 out of 5]

قراة النسخة المترجمة من قبل *وعد العريض
وكان ترجمة جميلة جدا تدور احداث الرواية عن مدير بنك يدعى *وارن* يحاول انقاذ مدينة بعد ان اعتبرت مدينة شاربلس المدمرة

[Fdr67 · Rating 2 out of 5]

My ratings are all about smell really. This one was off shelf for some reason and smells of sugar, vaguely. It's a Pan Books edition 1968 with quite a boring cover depicting a man in a greenish raincoat whose right arm is being held, somewhat tensely, by a woman in a cream raincoat; he appears to be holding some blueprints of a weapon in that hand and behind them are some large cranes (the kind that help construct buildings). On the back of this paperback is this frankly unfeasible, opaque line: 'The train passed through Peterborough. It would be damn good fun...' What would? Passing through Peterborough is, without a shadow of a fucking doubt a Good Thing as opposed to Stopping In Peterborough, but what - even including the relief at avoiding that shithole - constitutes fun subsequent to all that?

I did enjoy the only other thing I read of this book which is the final line:

'Then she, too, left her desk, and ran with the rest.'

If you feel like putting a comma in a sentence don't.