The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon · first published 2002
50% recommend44% neutral6% critical
Why HN recommends it
Narrated by an autistic teenager, this creative and engaging story is a good, quick read. The narrator stands out as one of fiction's most memorable characters.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
This is Christopher's murder mystery story. There are no lies in this story because Christopher can't tell lies. Christopher does not like strangers or the colours yellow or brown or being touched. On the other hand, he knows all the countries in the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7507. When Christohper decides to find out who killed the neighbour's dog, his mystery story becomes more complicated than he could ever have predicted.
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…another book that you are forced to read prematurely in middle or high school. At the time, it was a frustrating exercise; upon rereading it at age 25, I thought it was fantastic. I also enjoyed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. It was very creative. Sadly, I had no books that yielded a personal intellectual epoch this year.
on “Ask HN: Great books you read in 2009?” ↗The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. by Mark Haddon (http://www.amazon.com/Curious-Incident-Dog-Night-Time/dp/140...) - engaging story written from the point of view of an austistic teenager. One of my favorite characters in any book I've…
on “Ask HN: Great books you read in 2009?” ↗-All my friends are superheros -The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time -Outliers ... and other Malcolm Gladwel books -The Professor and the Madman many more.
on “Ask HN: What is the greatest book you've ever read?” ↗The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and A Spot of Bother both by Mark Haddon The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
on “Ask HN: What is the best fiction book you've ever read? ” ↗1.The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time 2.Looking for Alaska 3.Blindness 4.Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival 5.The Martian 6.Never Let Me Go
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?” ↗The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon might be right up your alley then! Highly recommended.
on “I Like That the Boat Is Stuck” ↗- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - The Aubrey-Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brian - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon - Watchmen by various - Star Trek: Doctor's Orders by Diane Duane - The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton - Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini - Ice Station Zebra by Alistair MacLean…
on “Ask HN: What is your favorite fiction book?” ↗…think that kind of reverses itself if you are able to get at the human aspect, the us-fascination of your work--once it's there, it's probably more fun for both writer and reader to celebrate it. - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon While reading, I was excited and horrified to learn that my psychology overlaps with this fictional kid's psychology in more ways than it was comfortable to admit. I decided to hold onto…
on “Ask HN: What books have you read that have changed your life?” ↗Curious Incident of the Dog in the night time was the last physical book I bought. Such a good read. I really enjoyed that book.
on “I made a virtual bookshelf” ↗The professor reminds me of this book: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time http://www.amazon.com/The-Curious-Incident-Dog-Night-Time/dp... The character sure gets around even though he can't process most of what's happening between normal people.
on “The Professor, the Bikini Model and the Suitcase Full of Trouble” ↗59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
…Cooperative Computing Awards (which I run), where if you can find and prove really large primes, like world-record size, you can win cash prizes. https://www.eff.org/awards/coop There is a reference in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time that may be intended to allude to this and seems to be based on the idea that these large primes would be useful for cryptography. (The protagonist says that you're supposed to send your huge primes…
on “Prime number patterns” ↗…Understanding Weatherfax - for an attempted (and failed) circumnavigation Sail Power Kon Tiki Shogun Art of the Sailor Business Adventures Metamorphoses (by Ovid, not Kafka) Guns, Germs, Steel Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - this book had so many rave reviews. it has a tremendous hook and style for the first 50 pages, but overall I thought it was terrible Cryptonomicon -- fantastic Simulacra and simulation -- started,…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2015?” ↗…War and Peace, both of which I binge-read over a period of a few days, barely allowing myself to eat and rarely allowing myself to shower while I read them. The other ones were Frindle, Tangerine, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, and Catcher in the Rye. They were completely consuming. My addiction to video games was so intense and so severe that they were outright banned at my house. I was terrible at school, skipping more than…
on “A Natural Fix for A.D.H.D.?” ↗And _why himself thought of his [(poignant) guide to Ruby] as a literary project. “The book I feel is closest to my book is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which interleaves brief math puzzles and astronomical diagrams with the story,” he wrote to a listserv. “[I’m] interested in presenting an initial stab at giving literary value to a programming text.…
on “Where’s _why?” ↗