The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon

National Geographic Books, Dec 26, 2007 - Autism - 320 pages

International Bestseller #1 National Bestseller in Canada Foreign rights have been sold to the UK, Italy, France, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Japan, Greece, Finland, Denmark, Holland and Brazil. Film rights have been bought by Hey Day (the makers of Harry Potter) together with Brad Grey (producer of The Sopranos) and Brad Pitt in their first acquisition for Warner Bros. Narrated by a fifteen-year-old autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, this dazzling novel weaves together an old-fashioned mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion into a mind incapable of processing emotions. Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. At fifteen, Christopher's carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbour's dog Wellington impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing. Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer, and turns to his favourite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the dissolution of his parents' marriage. As Christopher tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, the narrative draws readers into the workings of Christopher's mind. And herein lies the key to the brilliance of Mark Haddon's choice of narrator: The most wrenching of emotional moments are chronicled by a boy who cannot fathom emotions.The effect is dazzling, making for one of the freshest debut in years: a comedy, a tearjerker, a mystery story, a novel of exceptional literary merit that is great fun to read. From the Trade Paperback edition.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - aeceyton - LibraryThing

I loved this book. I was gripped by the narrator's voice instantly, letting him take me into his world-view. I'm not saying i cried at any point but i did have to put it down for a day when i got ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - trinityM82 - LibraryThing

This was hard to read as an ebook because of the formatting. It was also a bit hard to read because the first person narrator is Autistic and so his voice can become tiring if you read a lot of it at ...

Contents

• are First you write down all the positive whole numbers in the world: 14
• 26: 27
• 30: 29
• 34: 35
• 45: 46
• 47: 48
• 49: 198
• etc Then you take away all the numbers that are multi ples of 2 Then you take away all the numbers that: 269

About the author

Mark Haddon is a writer and illustrator of numerous award-winning children’s books and television adaptations. As a young man, Haddon worked with autistic individuals. He currently teaches creative writing for the Arvon Foundation and at Oxford University. He lives in Oxford, England.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
• Author: Mark Haddon
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: National Geographic Books, 2007
• ISBN: 1400025354, 9781400025350
• Length: 320 pages