Jasper Fforde
Three separate interviews in which Jasper Fforde discusses the Thursday Next series, his Nursery Crime novels and Shades of Grey, the first in a trilogy set in a future world recognizable as our own - but only just.
Abraham Verghese
An interview with Abraham Verghese about his life and writing and in particular about his extraordinary 2009 novel Cutting for Stone, set in 1960s and '70s Ethiopia and 1980s New York.
Martha A Sandweiss
An interview with Martha Sandweiss in which she discusses her book Passing Strange, a biography of Clarence King who lived a double life—as the celebrated white explorer, geologist, and writer Clarence King and as a black Pullman porter named James Todd, married to Ada with whom he had five children.
Amy Greene
Amy Greene talks about her first novel, Bloodroot, which brings her native Appalachia—and the faith and fury of its people—to rich and vivid life.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: Summary and book reviews of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, plus links to an excerpt from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and a biography of Mark Haddon.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by
Mark Haddon
Hardcover: Jun 2003,
240 pages.
Paperback: May 2004,
240 pages.
Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. Routine, order and predictability shelter him from the messy, wider world. Then, at fifteen, Christopher's carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbor'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 favorite 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 he tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, we are drawn 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 emotion. The effect is dazzling, making for a novel that is deeply funny, poignant, and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing is a mind that perceives the world literally.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is one of the freshest debuts in years: a comedy, a heartbreaker, a mystery story, a novel of exceptional literary merit that is great fun to read.
Book Reviews
Publishers Weekly
... an eye-opening work in a unique and compelling literary voice.
Booklist - Kristine Huntley
Narrated by the unusual and endearing Christopher, who alternates between analyzing mathematical equations and astronomy and contemplating the deaths of Wellington and his mother, the novel is both fresh and inventive.
Library Journal - David Hellman
The novel is being marketed to a YA audience, but strong language and adult situations make this a good title for sophisticated readers of all ages. Highly recommended for all fiction collections.
Kirkus Reviews
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism wonderful, simple, easy, moving, and likely to be a smash.
The New York Times — Michiko Kakutani
In choosing to make Christopher his narrator, Mr. Haddon has deliberately created a story defined and limited by his hero's very logical, literal-minded point of view. The result is a minimalistic narrative -- not unlike a Raymond Carver story in its refusal to speculate, impute motive or perform emotional embroidery.
NY Times Sunday Book Review - Jay McInerney
Mark Haddon's stark, funny and original first novel...is presented as a detective story. But it eschews most of the furnishings of high-literary enterprise as well as the conventions of genre, disorienting and reorienting the reader to devastating effect.
Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha
I have never read anything quite like Mark Haddon's funny and agonizingly honest book, or encountered a narrator more vivid and memorable. I advise you to buy two copies; you wonðt want to lend yours out.
Myla Goldberg, author of Bee Season The Curious Incident brims with imagination, empathy, and vision -- plus it's a lot of fun to read.
Ian McEwan, author of Atonement and Amsterdam
Mark Haddon's portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind is a superb achievement. He is a wise and bleakly funny writer with rare gifts of empathy.
Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, Bloodroot is a stunning fiction debut about the legacies—of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss—that haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today.
Samara Taylor used to believe in miracles. But her mother is in rehab, and her father seems more interested in his congregation than his family. And when a young girl in her small town is kidnapped, her already-worn thread of faith begins to unravel.
When she's not digging up bones or other ancient objects, quirky, tart-tongued archaeologist Ruth Galloway lives happily alone in Norfolk. But when a child's bones are found on a desolate beach nearby, and Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson calls Galloway for help, Ruth finds herself in...
Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole –and the grown woman whose story is no less...
The Coral Thief, as riveting and beautifully rendered as Ghostwalk, Rebecca Stott’s first novel, is a provocative and tantalizing mix of history, philosophy, and suspense. It conjures up vividly both the feats of Napoleon and the accomplishments of those working without fame or...
I rarely read anything before this. Years ago I picked this one up and couldn't put it down. It changed me into a book nut. It was a wonderful ...
read more
I can't believe I waited so long to read this book. Shame on me. This book was wonderful, lyrical, entertaining - all the makings of a wonderful ...
read more
The book held so much for the reader but in the end I felt robbed. The evolution of Trudy was disturbing and somewhat insulting. She came across as ...
read more
Justice Department still has issues with Google Settlement(Feb 05 2010) The Department of Justice dealt a serious blow Thursday evening to the chances that the Google Book Search settlement will gain court approval later this...
Full Story
Hachette formally adopts 'agency model'(Feb 05 2010) Hachette Book Group USA became the second major U.S. publisher to officially announce its intention to move to an agency model for the sale of e-books....
Full Story
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Publishers Weekly
Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha
RSS feed
