Book: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

A different perspective, worth reading

My father-in-law and sister-in-law both recommend this book. It is worth reading. It’s told from the perspective of the 15 year-old autistic boy. Presumably he’s a “highly functioning” autistic because he’s very good at math and seems relatively functional and other areas.

A review I read on Amazon.com, supposedly written by an autistic man, said that this was the best portrayal he’d read of what it’s like to be autistic. It felt very insightful, and was interesting, sweet and unique.

When I read excerpts of this book on Amazon.com I noticed that there were a bunch of in-line pictures. They weren’t superfluous illustrations, but rather were part of telling the story. Given that, I was concerned that listening to it on audio wouldn’t work. I ordered both the printed and audio version from the library. It turns out that the audio version is very well done and they do an excellent job of making sure that the content of the pictures is incorporated in the storytelling. You wouldn’t actually know that there are drawn pictures in the book; you would just think there were written descriptions like you hear. Perhaps you miss out on the quirky and unusual nature of the in-line pictures, but you don’t miss anything substantive. So if you like listening to audio books, don’t let that stop you.