✎ The Shock of the Fall By Nathan Filer [Hardcover] ✎

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer Novel Front Cover

The Author of this Novel Nathan Filer is a registered mental health nurse, a writer and lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

He has worked as a researcher in the academic unit of psychiatry at the University of Bristol and as a mental health nurse on in-patient wards.

He is also a performance poet, contributing regularly to literary events across the UK. His work has been broadcast on television and radio. The Shock of the Fall is his first novel.

The Shock of the Fall comes in the formats:
Hardcover, Paperback, Audio, Audiobook, CD and Audio Download

Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins; First Edition edition (9 May 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0007491433
ISBN-13: 978-0007491438
Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 15.4 x 3.4 cm
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars (279 reviews)
Bestsellers Rank: 80,254 in Books

A few words from the Novel Page 1-2

the girl and her doll

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer Page 1

I should say that I am not a nice person. Sometimes I try to be, but often I'm not. So when it was my turn to cover my eyes and count to a hundred - I cheated.

I stood at the spot where you had to stand when it was your turn to count, which was beside the recycling bins, next to the shop selling disposable barbecues and spare tent pegs. And near to there is a small patch of overgrown grass, tucked away behind a water tap.

Except I don't remember standing there. Not really. You don't always remember the details like that, do you? You don't remember if you were beside the recycling bins, or further up the path near the shower blocks, and whether actually the water tap is up there?

I can't now hear the manic cry of seagulls, or taste the salt in the air. I don't feel the heat of the afternoon sun making me sweat beneath a clean white dressing on my knee, or the itching of suncream in the cracks of my scabs. I can't make myself relive the vague sensation of having been abandoned. And neither - for what it's worth - do I actually remember deciding to cheat, and open my eyes.

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer Page 2

She looked about my age, with red hair and a face flecked in hundreds of freckles. Her cream dress was dusty around the hem of kneeling on the ground, and clutched to her chest was a small cloth doll, with a smudged pink face, brown woollen hair, and eyes made of shining black buttons...

Some of the reviews from people

"I've just finished reading part of Matt's story that he's shared with me in The Shock of the Fall and I find myself actually worrying about what life will be like for him from now on. Poignant, heart rending, but at the same time amusing - a total one-off. The author was never present - it was Matt running the show from start to finish. Amazing."


"The book takes you into Matthews world... Which is heartbroken, lost, confused, and much more...
Feeling Matthews life throughout the book, the journey, Simon, the story is incredible."





"A beautiful and tender book, wrestling with very hard truths. I congratulate the author on the superb way he depicts the inner turmoil of a little boy, who already has the seeds of mental fragility embedded. Schizophrenia is complex illness about which we still know very little. It often appears in particularly clever and sensitive children in their teens. Matt is such a child. The characterisation and the dialogue of the novel are beautifully pitched, it is totally believable, touching and splendid. Read it."

You may also like to read

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

✎ The Fault in Our Stars (Thorndike Literacy Bridge) By John Green ✎

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

✎ Life After Life by Kate Atkinson - Hardcover Book ✎

✎ Life After Life by Kate Atkinson - Hardcover Book ✎

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson Hardcover Book Front Cover

Book Description

WINNER OF THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD

What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, Kate Atkinson finds warmth even in life's bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here she is at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.

On a snowy night in 1910, a baby is born. The doctor is unable to reach her due to the weather, and she dies. Or the doctor makes it in time, and she is saved. Or a mother's instinct pulls her back from the edge, and she lives. This is how Ursula Todd's life begins, again and again.

Over the course of her life, Ursula continues to die and be reborn, over and over again. Each life brings with it a different set of choices, different experiences and a different fate. Her family and certain key characters throughout the book feature in many different incarnations, their lives at some times entirely separate and at some times intrinsically linked with Ursula's. Her decisions see her take a variety of paths - sometimes to the London war office and sometimes to Germany, sometimes as a mistress and sometimes as a wife, sometimes happy and sometimes utterly alone.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson Hardcover Page 13

The main point of the novel seems to be to demonstrate how the smallest thing can impact on your entire life. Ursula is continually faced with deadly situations, but some lingering feelings and an uncanny sense of déjà vu from a past life continue to propel her forward. Some incidents are harder to avoid than others - a deadly outbreak of Spanish Influenza proves particularly hazardous. In other cases, a few offhand words spoken here or there can change the course of an entire life.

War is a major theme throughout the book, and in many strands it is a pervading influence on the central characters. Ursula's role in events changes from life to life, but the reality of fighting and the hardship of living through World War II is constant. Ultimately, Atkinson uses Ursula's individual story to ask if one person's actions can influence events on a global scale, and change the course of history forever. It's a really interesting concept, although I personally found the ending a little abrupt and there wasn't a great deal of build up to her final actions in the same way as with some of her earlier turning points.

The structure of the novel, which flits around in time and place indiscriminately, is quite hard to get used to. Central characters appear and disappear, and live or die, depending on which particular narrative strand Ursula's life has taken. Some of her lives are truly awful, seeing her a victim of extreme violence, loneliness, or emotional turmoil. I found myself hoping for the death that was sure to come just so she could escape whatever horrible reality she was in at the time. On the other hand, in some strands she is happy, successful and simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. In these cases, I was desperately hoping she could fight fate.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson Hardcover Page 14

Kate Atkinson writes with immense skill. Despite the continually shifting time periods, all of the characters are really well rounded and developed. Ursula is portrayed especially well. Her circumstances, frame of mind and outlook can change completely from chapter to chapter but her core remains the same and I was really rooting for her to choose the right path and end up happily ever after. There's a certain inevitability about this book. Death comes no matter what choices Ursula makes, and all she can do is to try and overcome obstacles until she gets it right. In the end, there was an overwhelming sense that we can't have everything. Every one of Ursula's lives had a sense of compromise and its own share of tragedy. But at the end of the day, that's just life.

"Kate Atkinson's new novel is a box of delights. Ingenious in construction, indefatigably entertaining, it grips the reader's imagination on the first page and never lets go. If you wish to be moved and astonished, read it. And if you want to give a dazzling present, buy it for your friends."

Hilary Mantel

There aren't enough breathless adjectives to describe Life After Life: Dazzling, witty, moving, joyful, mournful, profound. Wildly inventive, deeply felt. Hilarious. Humane.

Simply put: it's ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS I'VE READ THIS CENTURY. 
Gillian Flynn,no1 New York Times author of Gone Girl, and Sharp Objects

"Truly brilliant...Think of Audrey Niffenegger's The TimeTraveler's Wife or David Nicholl's One Day...[or] Martin Amis's Times Arrow, his rewinding of the Holocaust that was shortlisted for the Booker. Life After Life should have the popular success of the former and deserves to win prizes, too. It has that kind of thrill to it, of an already much-loved novelist taking a leap, and breaking through to the next level...This is a rare book that you want, Ursula-like, to start again the minute you have finished." 
Helen Rumbelow The Times

"What makes Atkinson an exceptional writer - and this is her most ambitious and most gripping work to date - is that she does so with an emotional delicacy and understanding that transcend experiment or playfulness. Life After Life gives us a heroine whose fictional underpinning is permanently exposed, whose artificial status is never in doubt; and yet one who feels painfully, horribly real to us." Alex Clark Guardian

"Merging family saga with a fluid sense of time and an extraordinarily vivid sense of history at its most human level. A dizzying and dazzling tour de force." 
Amber Pearson Daily Mail

Formats
Hardcover Paperback, Audio, CD, Audiobook, Audio Download, Unabridged

Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition, First Impression edition (14 Mar 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385618670
ISBN-13: 978-0385618670
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.6 x 5.6 cm
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  767 reviews
Bestsellers Rank: 6,515 in Books

You might also like ✎ The Fault in Our Stars (Thorndike Literacy Bridge) By John Green ✎

✎ Minecraft - The Official Annual 2014 [Hardcover] ✎

Book Description

Minecraft: The Official Annual 2014 (Annuals 2014)

Minecraft: The Official Annual 2014 - Front Cover

You're alone in a strange new world full of hidden dangers. Daylight lasts just ten minutes before night falls. With just your bare hands to mine with you only have minutes to find food and shelter before darkness falls and the monsters come looking for you.

Now is the time to mine, to craft and to create. These essential tips should help you stay one step ahead of the hostile mobs during those first few nail-biting nights.

STEVE

This is you, in all your Minecraft-y glory. If you're not happy with your image, you can change it later by uploading a new skin. See page 46 for som skin-spiration!

SHEEP

Cute, isn't it? And you don't have to kill it to get wool. Simply craft yourself a pair of shears (see page 21) and get chopping.

TREE

It may seem strange, but if you want to survive you're going to have to hit the trunk of this tree repeatedly until you get wood.

Minecraft: The Official Annual 2014 - Page 12

SUN

Keep an eye on the sun's progress through the sky. Just before nightfall, go into your shelter, shut the door and hope for the best!

BED

Allows you to sleep at night, skipping ahead to the next morning when it's safe to go outside again.

SHELTER

Without a shelter you are at the mercy of the mobs who come out after dark. Your first shelter can be very simple, just dirt blocks will do.

CRAFTING TABLE

An essential piece of kit, used to craft most of the items in the game, you'll need access to one of these at all times. Set one up in your shelter immediately.

TORCHES

Essential both inside and outside as they prevent hostile mobs from spawning around you.

FURNACE

Enables you to cook meat, making it safer and more filling than raw meat. Can also be used to smelt ore and create glass for windows.

CHEST

Minecraft: The Official Annual 2014 - Page 13

Your inverntory can only hold so much. Keep your loot safe in a chest. A small chest has 27 storage slots and a large one has 54.

WOODEN DOOR

With one of these you'll be safe from hostile mobs, unless you have changed your difficulty to hard. Just don't forget to close it behind you!


This annual celebrates the limitless possibilities of Minecraft. Packed with step-by-step instructions for exciting builds and projects, tips from the experts, including the game's creator Notch himself, cool things to make, games to test your brain power and codes to unravel, it's everything Minecraft fans have been waiting for.

This might just be the one thing good enough to drag them away from their screens this year!

Hardcover: 72 pages
Publisher: Egmont (10 Sep 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1405267674
ISBN-13: 978-1405267670
Product Dimensions: 29 x 22 x 1 cm
Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (151 customer reviews)
Bestsellers Rank: 29 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#11 in Books > Children's Books

Some reviews from people

"It's easy enough to find out the information contained within the book online but the book has some really cool interviews with advice and information that you may not be able to find online. "

"My son is 10 and a minecraft nut, however he said this is for beginners so was not too impressed."

"My 7 year old loves Minecraft and says this annual has shown him how to build things he didn't know how to build beforehand. So I'd recommend it to anyone. Not only that but the book is of high quality and is incredibly unique. It's worth getting if you're a super minecraft fan or you love good quality stuff. "

"Bought this for my grandson for Christmas, HE IS STILL READING IT :) CANT STOP TALKING ABOUT IT, great present"

✎ The Fault in Our Stars (Thorndike Literacy Bridge) By John Green ✎

John Green is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author whose many accolades include the Printz Medal, a Printz Honor, and the Edgar Award. With his brother, Hank, John is one half of the Vlogbrothers (youtube.com/vlogbrothers), one of the most popular online video projects in the world. You can join John's 1.2 million followers on Twitter (@realjohngreen) or visit him online at johngreenbooks.com and fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com. John lives with his wife and son in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Avaliable in Hardcover, Paperback, Audiobook, CD, MP3 and Audio download.

• Hardcover: 363 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press; Lrg edition (26 July 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1410450015
• ISBN-13: 978-1410450012
• Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14 x 3 cm

Book Description

Series: Thorndike Literacy Bridge

Front Cover - The Fault In Our Stars

I have to admit, even though I had heard this book was a really good one, even the thought of a young adult novel about teenagers with cancer didn't appeal to me that much. My initial reaction were also somewhat less than "stellar". Everyone talks in a very "razor sharp", "ultra witty" way that feels straight out of some Aaron Sorkin or Diablo Cody movie.

Not even remotely how any 16 or 17 year old I know of would speak. I feared that it was going to be all style without any substance, bouncing along until a requisite tearjearking conclusion.

But I was wrong.

This is a book with a group of characters that you really care about. At it's core are the star-crossed lovers, Hazel (the one with terminal cancer) and Augustus (the cancer survivor). They meet at a cancer support group and become close, despite Hazel's desire to avoid becoming a "grenade" in anybody's life. By which she means someone who will unwittingly cause significant hurt through their passing. They are fantastically loveable characters, who flit between deep conversations about the meaning of life and finding refuge in video games and reality TV shows. I loved them both. Still do.

But the book is more than that. It's about coming to terms with the fact that your life will almost certainly never rise above insignificance. Yes, you will matter to your family and friends, maybe even write a few reviews that people will like. But ultimately you probably won't make any life changing impact on the world. It's about the way we shrink from people with terminal disease only to laud them when they pass. It's about the impact that terminal diseases have on the families of those left behind. It's about teenagers growing up and learning to take responsibility for their own lives, defining themselves by who they are and not what disease they may have.

I don't know if there's anything life changing here, but it's definitely a moving, entertaining and thought provoking book.

Here are some book reviews.

*The film tie-in edition of John Green's witty yet heart-breaking tour de force. Featuring 7 stills from the hotly anticipated movie from Twentieth Century Fox.*

"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once."

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.

Sunday Times (Culture)

'A touching, often fiercely funny novel'

The Sun on Sunday (Fabulous Magazine)

'So good I think it should be compulsory reading for everyone!'

Daily Express

'John Green brilliantly captures the voices of a young generation while instilling it with the wisdom of a life that has lived too much yet will never live enough.

Rather than depressing, the book is filled with dark humour and is written with a beautiful simplicity that draws the reader in so deeply that it's not just the twist and turns but the gently bends and curves that you feel tugging at your emotions... No doubt in the end you will cry but you will also feel that you have discovered a little something about living'

Daily Telegraph

'The novel, written for teenagers, but proving even more popular with adults'

The Metro - 2013 Best Fiction

The YA crossover hit of the year. The love affair of two terminally ill teenagers could be mawkish. In fact, it's funny, clever, irreverent and life-affirming.

The Fault In Our Stars - Chapter One Page 3

The Guardian

'A Smart Book'

Grazia

'So good!'

Good Housekeeping

'John Green may write for young adults, but his intelligent sensitive style means The Fault in Our Stars defies categorisation... as funny as it is heartbreaking... we defy you not to fall in love with its main characters, Hazel and Augustus.'

The Tablet

'A humourous and poignant love story... It's terrifically funny... as well as a moving exploration of loss and grief. And no, it's so much not just for teenage cancer sufferers... it's for everyone.'

Bliss

The Fault In Our Stars By John Green - Chapter One Page4

'If you need inspiration when it comes to making the most of a moment, this one is for you'

Mizz

'Exploring the funny, thrilling and tragic business of being alive and in love, this is a life-affirming tale of two teenagers who are terminally ill. Insightful, bold, irreverent and raw, if this doesn't make you cry, it'll definitely make you think, laugh and maybe even fall in love yourself!'

** A thought-provoking love story from the New York Times bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns and - with David Levithan - Will Grayson, Will Grayson.

** John Green has over 1.2 million Twitter followers, and almost 700,000 subscribers to Vlogbrothers, the YouTube channel he created with his brother, Hank.

** The Fault in Our Stars will capture a crossover audience in the same vein as Zadie Smith, David Nicholls' One Day and Before I Die by Jenny Downham.

** 'Electric . . . Filled with staccato bursts of humor and tragedy' - Jodi Picoult

** 'A novel of life and death and the people caught in between, The Fault in Our Stars is John Green at his best. You laugh, you cry, and then you come back for more' - Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief

 

You might also like to read ✎ Life After Life by Kate Atkinson - Hardcover Book ✎