The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Paperback)

The book opens with Christopher stumbling upon a dead dog lying in his neighbour's garden. The dog is pinned to the ground by a pitchfork. Immediately he decides to find out what happened to the dog and, inspired by his favourite fictional character, Sherlock Holmes, he launches a "murder investigation" that rocks both the local community and his own strangely mundane and ordered life.

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" has won many awards - and with good reason. It's one of those rare books, originally written for children but now popular with an increasing number of adults.

The language is simple, but this simplicity renders Christopher's voice more powerful. You really get into his head and see the world through his emotionally dissociated mind. The charming diagrams and drawings littered throughout the book only add to this.

As you plough through each short chapter, you are able to piece together the revelations of Christopher's investigation long before he is able to comprehend them. This gives the story further urgency, because you wish you could stop him from proceeding any farther, if not to shield him from the awful truth, at least to save his family from the emotional outfall. But Christopher plods on regardless in his own naive way, and there's nothing you can do.

The great beauty of this lovely book is not just the narrator's unique voice, it is Haddon's careful balance between bleak comedy and great sadness. He never resorts to sentimentality, which only makes the pathos all the more real.

I loved this story and read it in two sittings. It's original, witty and illuminating. No matter what your age, you'd be hard pressed to find a more interesting and page-turning novel.

Well, I personally have no experience in these areas, and I can honestly say that this has gone straight into my all time top 5 reads!

The story is wonderfully crafted, and not a page goes by when you do not learn something new about Christopher, the central character who has, I understand, though it is not stated in the book, Aspergers Syndrome (the book is actually written entirely from Christophers perspective).

This is one of those rare books that makes you want to discuss (not just talk about) the story. My wife and I both read it over the same weekend, and we kept finding ourselves going back to it to talk through some of the difficulties that Christopher faced, and how it must be to have to deal with them, either as the child or as a parent. This story really gives an insight into a mind which, in some ways, is far more developed than the mind of an "ordinary" person. It also gives you a feel for what it must be like to need complete structure and order to a life which can never absolutely have both. The lack of what you and I would call "emotion" was in itself deeply moving, and several times I found myself asking how I would cope if one of my two children had the same difficulties.

This is a remarkable book. If only everyone could read it, society would become a much more understanding and accepting place for those who suffer from the effects of conditions such as Aspergers, ADHD and Autism.

The real joy of the book is not its plot (which is skimpy and turns into a soap opera in the final third), but its nuanced portrait of the challenges faced by the mildly autistic, and by those who raise them. Christopher's sensitivity to noise, crowds, colors, and especially being touched, is shown in vivid detail (Some reviewers have criticized the character of Christopher as having many behavioral tics that would be cured in a few years therapy, however they seem to have missed the point that his father is a lower-middle class, blue-collar worker, and by inference could never hope to afford therapy.). At the same time there's no attempt to build Christopher into a figure of pity: he's clever, persistent, irritable, and sometimes irritating -a fully rounded character who simply operates in a slightly different world than most of us. The prose is very simple and direct, as one might expect from a young boy, making accessible to younger readers (although parents should be aware that there are four-letter words present). If for no other reason, the book is worth reading for the humanistic and empathetic portrayal of a mentally disabled youth, and will help any reader better understand the challenges facing those with mild autism.