On The Beach

"Singer: It’s the quintessential Cold War story. It’s utterly haunting. It captures so well the madness of MAD: mutually assured destruction. By not playing it out at the level of the generals and the White House Situation Room, but instead [focusing on] one submarine crew and the civilians they interact with, it brings it down to the personal level. It shows the craziness of this mutual suicide pact that the entire world willingly or unwillingly signed up to. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter Cole: The question of the human experience after the nuclear holocaust is really hard to write about. It was an emotional window into mass extinction, particularly on the dual loyalties of family and nation. What makes it relevant today is that it is such a powerful meditation on dying."