Book Review : The curious incident of the dog in the night -time - Mark Haddon

Awards and nominations: Winner of the 2003 Whitbread Award and the 2004 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for best first book.

As all things in the world including  reading  depends on your mood. I also pick up books depending on my state of mind. There are books which I love to read in Solitude (Into the wild , One life to ride etc.) , some books when I am down ( Its not abt the bike ) , when in an introspecting state of mind ( Tuesdays with Morrie, The art of motorcycle maintenance) and while traveling I generally prefer a light book which could be read in 4-5 hours. I would rate this book as one of those travel books. Next time you are picking up a book for some trip do pick this one up.

The book is a murder mystery involving the killing of a neighbor’s dog . Christopher the protagonist tries to solve the mystery and in the process learns a lot of other things. He decides to solve the case and side by side write down it in a form of novel. The author has done a great job by writing it in a form which resembles a child narrating the story. Christopher is a guy who loves maths and has a good memory. Not only the chapters are numbered as prime numbers but also from time to time he discusses certain concepts in maths. However he still is a kid and has certain superstitions of his own. His superstitions , eating habits , likes and dislikes , behavior are very amusing adds flavor to the story.

In many of the reviews people have talked about Christopher being an autistic person but there is no such mention in the book and the author also has mentioned so in his webpage.

To quote one of my favorite lines from the book, “Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. Prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you can never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.”

Rating : 3/5