Which brings me to this post: I just finished a great book. We read it for the book club. Our book club meeting was last week - but it took me until tonight to finish the book. It's not difficult to read - but the difficulty was just finding the time.
The book is about a boy that is autistic. We really had an interesting discussion that night because two of the ladies in my group have siblings that are autistic. We had a long conversation about what it's like to live with someone with autism.
One reason I enjoyed it is because I know someone from my University days that is autistic. He's always been someone that has just made me smile. He's quite entertaining in a funny and harmless way.
The book was also inspiring because it's neat to see how the main character accomplishes some great things (makes his way to London to see his mother by himself, aces a math test, and writes a book) and because of those things he sets bigger goals.
The summary on Amazon.ca says:
"Mark Haddon's bitterly funny first novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, is a murder mystery of sorts--one told by an autistic version of Adrian Mole. Christopher John Francis Boone is a 15-year-old boy, mathematically gifted and socially hopeless, raised in a working-class home by parents who can barely cope with their child's quirks. He takes everything that he sees (or is told) at face value, and is unable to sort out the strange behaviour of his elders and peers.
Late one night, Christopher comes across his neighbour's poodle, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork. Wellington's owner finds him cradling her dead dog in his arms, and has him arrested. After spending a night in jail, Christopher resolves--against the objection of his father and neighbours--to discover just who has murdered Wellington. He is encouraged by Siobhan, a social worker at his school, to write a book about his investigations, and the result--quirkily illustrated, with each chapter given its own prime number--is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
"Haddon's novel is a startling performance. This is the sort of book that could turn condescending, or exploitative, or overly sentimental, or grossly tasteless very easily, but Haddon navigates those dangers with a sureness of touch that is extremely rare among first-time novelists. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is original, clever, and genuinely moving: this one is a must-read."
I read on the author's website (www.markhaddon.com) that the rights have been sold to make this book into a movie. That would be interesting! I was interested in reading about the author and finding out how about how someone was able to get such an insight into people with autism. I think the author has the strangest website! I really couldn't find much of what I was looking for (inspiration for the book, background on the author, etc.) One bit of interesting information I found was just to say that he doesn't accept many requests for appearances as he did that for a while and just found it took away too much time from writing. Specifically he said, "Nearly all the people I have met while publicising Curious Incident were kind and enthusiastic and charming, but every day I spent in their company was a day in which I got no writing done." I thought that was quite curious. 'got no writing done'?? My mother would click her tongue at that grammar. It kind of reminded me of how Harper Lee felt about the fame To Kill a Mockingbird brought her. I suppose there are a lot of people that write because they like the solitude of it - something that doesn't quiet mesh when one becomes a famous author!
Next month we are reading Mary Called Magdalene...and it's quite thick! I picked it up at the library tonight and I figure I better get serious about getting through it right away!
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