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Mark Haddon was a writer and illustrator of children's books, who one day decided to write a new book for adults instead. An image popped into his head -- of a dead poodle in someone's front yard, stabbed with a pitchfork -- and he believed it was just about the funniest thing in the world (origin). However, before we give him the old "you're nuts" therapy, let us take a look at what that turned into.

From this picture alone, Haddon established the hugely successful The Curious Incident of the Dog at the Night-Time. It has sold millions of copies (tens of millions, really), won the prestigious Whitbread Award in 2003, and today can be seen in bookstores in only about every nation in the world (origin).

Haddon's initial foray into adult novels tells the story of a fifteen-year-old boy named Christopher Boone, who discovers -- you guessed it -- a dead dog from his neighbor's lawn. On the rear of most editions of the book, Christopher is described as with Asperger syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder which makes social interactions hard and uncomfortable. While this clearly seems to describe Christopher's expertise in the world, his disease is in fact never specified from the book. He himself only says that he has "Behaviour Issues" (73.1).

A lover of Sherlock Holmes stories, Christopher decides to do some detective work of their own, and resolve the puzzle of who murdered the puppy. Along the way, he finds a great deal more than he anticipated -- both about himself and about parts of the world he never knew existed.

However, the book is really a valuable gem on its own (we believe valuable for even putting it this way, but it is accurate!) , as Christopher jumps from advanced astrophysics to the presence of God, from quadratic equations to his favourite animals in the zoo. Christopher's narrative voice is similar to any in literary history, and, against all odds, he makes a wonderful manual with this fascinating journey.

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