Costa book of the year award!

The Costa First Novel Award of 2013 has gone to Nathan Filer and his novel The Shock of the Fall. 

I feel slightly privileged and that I have no choice but to blog about this event. As Nathan Filer is also a tutor teaching Creative Writing at Bath Spa university, where I attend and take this course, I heard him read out a section of this amazing novel. Unfortunately I am not one of his students, but I feel privileged none the less to attend the university and to have basically met him. This was around two months ago - and if I had money I would have bought one of his copies right there and then. I still await to purchase a copy and hunt him down on campus to sign it for me.

The Shock of the Fall 

‘I’ll tell you what happened because it will be a good way to introduce my brother. His name’s Simon. I think you’re going to like him. I really do. But in a couple of pages he’ll be dead. And he was never the same after that.’

There are books you can’t stop reading, which keep you up all night.

There are books which let us into the hidden parts of life and make them vividly real.

There are books which, because of the sheer skill with which every word is chosen, linger in your mind for days.

The Shock of the Fall is all of these books.

The Shock of the Fall is an extraordinary portrait of one man’s descent into mental illness. It is a brave and groundbreaking novel from one of the most exciting new voices in fiction.

Description from Amazon where you can purchase this novel.

Both versions of the cover are beautiful and represent the emotion turmoil and distancing inside the book. 

As mentioned earlier, Nathan Filer is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University as well as a writer. He is 32 and a qualified mental health nurse. His book caused such a fuss in the publishing world that it became subject to an 11-way auction and was eventually bought by HarperCollins (the sum being six figures!) 

The Shock of the Fall has also been selected as BBC Radio 2 bookclub and Specsavers National book award!

I hope to soon purchase this book that has caused amazement in the writing world. So please look out for a review in the near future and if you have read it, let me know what you thought! Do you think it deserved this award? 

If not, why not see what all the fuss it about?