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Neurodiversity-books

Reading lists

Books about ADHD, autism, and neurodiversity

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6 unforgettable fathers in literature

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Extracts

The Porpoise by Mark Haddon: an opening to die for

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Features

The History of Hogarth Press

Mark Haddon on the origins behind The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

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Mark Haddon on the origins of The Curious Incident

The Porpoise

From bestselling author Mark Haddon comes a wild adventure of a novel that transports the reader from the present day to ancient times and back again - 'a breathless, delightful, utterly absorbing read' (Guardian)

Wondrous... a violent, all-action thrill ride shuttling between antiquity and the present... just downright brilliant... a transcendant, transporting experience... A helix, a mirror ball, a literary box of tricks… take your pick: this is a full-spectrum pleasure, mixing metafictional razzmatazz with pulse-racing action and a prose style to die for. I’ll be staggered if it’s not spoken of whenever prizes are mentioned this year

A beautifully rendered retelling…[and] a gripping novel that, despite its rollicking plot, never feels relentless, and is often very affecting indeed

The extraordinary force and vividness of Haddon's prose ensure that The Porpoise reads [...] as a continually unfolding demonstration of the transporting power of stories... This is language that knows how to do things: sail a ship, make a gold buckle, negotiate the tides of the Thames. It's a stunningly effective combination of the quotidian and the mythic that pins impossibility to the page

Compelling, satisfying and moving... Haddon's writing is exquisite, balancing simple storytelling with searing insight

The Porpoise is terrifically violent, with a bright, innocent ferocity … Haddon wants to restore agency to the female characters sidelined by the Antiochus legend. This could feel like a condescending attempt to end up on the right of history, but doesn’t

Told in Haddon’s generously telegraphic prose – onparticularly good form here – [...] The Porpoise is a defiantly odd novel, dependent on the fine caul of Haddon’s prose to keep together the heavily spiced romantic mixture within… Haunted not just by its direct source but by Ovid and others, the novel exists in a world of old magic, of stories within stories, and webs of allusion that would crumble swiftly if mishandled, but which, here, weave their spell marvellously well

[The Porpoise] races across the oceans: it is a book of thrilling, salt-caked adventures that scintillate like sunlight on the surface of the sea. There are plagues and famines and sword fights with not-quite human adversaries. There are desperate escapes and terrible family separations and dramatic recognitions. It is a breathless, delightful, utterly absorbing read

The Porpoise by Mark Haddon is the book I’ve recommended the most this year because it’s the one I had the most fun with. It kept shifting as I read it, changing from action to romance to science-fiction. It’s dizzying

Beguiling...ambitious...bold... Haddon's prose is beautiful, and he is utterly in command of his slippery material... An elegant homage to stories' capacity for endless renewal

Daring... extraordinary... Haddon’s writing is beautiful, almost hallucinatory at times, and his descriptions so rich and lush and specific that smells and sights and tastes and sounds — foam smashing across a boat’s deck; a breakfast of olives and barley bread soaked in wine; a woman trapped alive in a coffin — all but waft and dance off the page... The Porpoise is a provocative and deeply interesting work

[A] multi-layered, ambitious novel… [with] an immersive, intricate narrative… Elegant, inventive and thought-provoking

Mark Haddon has written a terrifically exciting novel called The Porpoise … so riveting that I found myself constantly pining to fall back into its labyrinth of swashbuckling adventure and feminist resistance

The Porpoise is lovely, sad, ambitious and admirable... Every age retells, refocuses and interprets the classics. In The Porpoise Mark Haddon has done so in a way that makes us look afresh not only at the story of Pericles but also at storytelling itself

An enthralling novel that will sweep you up from the off

Seriously good... a beautiful read you won't forget

Haddon’s glittering tapestry of a novel skilfully redeploys the structures of Pericles’ source material… In The Porpoise, Haddon gives voice to a character who, in Shakespeare, receives no more than a passing mention, and in doing so, shows the transcendent power of stories to heal and restore

Staggeringly ambitious, innovative, beautifully written... The Porpoise has the pace of a really good thriller, but combined with a subtlety and depth that few thrillers possess

A full-throttle blast of storytelling mastery. I read it on the plane in a single sitting at 30,000 feet and enjoyed every second. Gorgeously written and very clever, but also such fun! Ancient and modern overlap and tangle in exhilarating ways, it’s like romping through a Literary Netflix: an episode of something historical and bloody, then something slick and contemporary, then something really weird and unnerving. So many pleasures in one book. The Porpoise is a joy to read

There is storytelling of such primacy in Mark Haddon’s The Porpoise, that when I turned the last page, I was left completely elated. A gorgeous, enlivening experience. It is also one that insistently asks: how? How did all this add up to something so sublime? How, with all its subtle slips, and stunningly weird passages, could this strange, beautiful book feel so finely composed? It is disarmingly wild. And the story itself, in which the myth of Appolonius, remixed as Pericles by Shakespeare and George Wilkins, is again turned inside out, thrown backward and forward, and hurled against oceans (in an act of imaginative heroism by the author), invites us to understand something Haddon always has, which is that even stories as old as this one can remain relevant to our current moment. Especially if they are told with this much originality and conviction

Mark Haddon cuts right down to the grittiness of humanity every time he writes. The Porpoise is a beautiful, unputdownable, ancient tangle with its own sweeping tides and dangerous depths

It's hard to describe just how much tremendous joy and pleasure there is on every page

Haddon deftly adapts this ancient myth for the 21st century to illuminate a timeless, ugly truth about how the violent appetites of men strip women of their agency

A fantastical narrative that involves rampaging pirates, ghost women and princesses...Bold

This gripping and evocative novel questions the nature of the stories we tell ourselves and others

A wild adventure...full of splendid incident... There is much to enjoy in this novel -- the liveliness of Haddon's imagination and the virtuosity of his style

[The Porpoise] achieve[s] the truly Shakespearean feat of simultaneously conveying disgust at the darkest aspects of human behaviour and relishing them, making the reader feel horribly – and deliciously – complicit

Stamped with the same bold and original imagination… Haddon’s mash-up of myth and history may have a fantastical feel, but once the reader has adjusted to his exuberant originality they will find prose on every page that is pure joy

Haddon writes with wrenching beauty about how the world inflicts itself on the disadvantaged... It's a testament to Haddon's prodigious gifts as a storyteller that this strange, epic adventure is so compulsively readable

A strange, tangled web of a story, drawing on ancient mythology and expanding into time travel… this innovative novel offers escapes into multiple worlds

Irresistible storytelling that slides between the present day and a mythic realm… A heady delight

The novel draws on Shakespeare and Greek legend, and is the sort of mile-a-minute adventure you can get lost in for hours without realising

[The Porpoise] confirms the sense of a gifted writer letting his talent off the leash at last… Mind-bending yet marvellously readable, it stakes Haddon’s claim to be one of the best writers in Britain right now

Haddon conveys all this with startling granularity: the stinking, seething Jacobean London traversed by the ghosts of Wilkins and Shakespeare… Haddon's novel creates, throughout, a looming sense that something very bad but not quite perceptible is in the process of unfolding: a terrible half-glimpsed fate that the characters are powerless to resist

The Porpoise begins as a page-turning thriller and soon shifts into something slippery and strange – but remains propulsive throughout

Mark Haddon’s best novel yet. The Porpoise begins as a propulsive thriller…and segues into a classical-world adventure that reinvents the story of Pericles in prose of a hallucinatory vividness

The Porpoise reworks legend with the compelling force of a thriller

[An] exquisite retelling of Shakespeare’s Pericles

Thrilling, dramatic and exquisitely written, The Porpoise combines myth and reality to enthralling effect

Mark Haddon is one of our most imaginative storytellers, whose work has been read and enjoyed by millions. In his most recent book, The Pier Falls (‘Superbly gripping’, Sunday Times), he reworked two mythical legends – Ariadne on Naxos and Gawain and the Green Knight – and turned them into startling contemporary stories. In The Porpoise he takes on the epic tale of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, to stunning dramatic effect.

‘Just downright brilliant... a transcendent, transporting experience’ Observer 
 
A motherless girl grows up in isolated luxury, hidden from the world by her wealthy father. She believes their life together is normal – but as time passes, she has a growing sense that something between them is very wrong. 
 
She cannot escape, so she seeks solace in her books. Her favourite tales are those that conjure ancient worlds – of angry gods and heroic mortals, one of whom will some day come to her rescue. 
 
Soon, she will forget where the page ends and her mind begins. 
 
‘A full-throttle blast of storytelling mastery’ Max Porter

Vintage Minis

Family

Vintage Minis bring you the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human – from birth to death and everything in between

Imagine our joy when Vintage announced that it is publishing a collection of easily digestible books from the world’s most celebrated writers on the experiences that make us human… They look good and read well. That’s win/win in our book.

Literature for the Twitter generation ... there is clarity in the distillation

‘Family, that slippery word, a star to every wandering bark and everyone sailing under a different sky’ 
 
Where do you go if you can’t feel at home in your own family? When the people who made you can’t fathom who you become? In these three tales of quarrelling clans and fraught reunions, Mark Haddon shows family in its frank, unsparing yet frequently absurd light, and, in doing so charts a stormy course into the crucible of the self. 
 
Selected from The Pier Falls, The Red House and A Spot of Bother. 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Discover the in the Vintage Minis ‘Head Space’ series: 
 
Recovery by Helen Macdonald 
Therapy by Stephen Grosz

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Vintage Children's Classics

A beautiful new Vintage Classics edition to celebrate the 15th anniversary of this wise, blackly funny, radically imaginative novel

Fifteen year old Christopher is about to embark on an investigation... 
 
Lots of things are mysteries. But that doesn't mean there isn't an answer to them. 
 
It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears' house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. 
 
This is Christopher's murder mystery story. There are also 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 Christopher decides to find out who killed the neighbour's dog, his mystery story becomes more complicated than he could have ever predicted. 
 
'Outstanding... a stunningly good read' Observer 
 
'A superb achievement. He is a wise and bleakly funny writer with rare gifts of empathy' Ian McEwan 
 
**ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**

Wondrous...brilliantly inventive...dazzling. Not simply the most original novel I've read in years - it's also one of the best

Exceptional by any standards. Both funny and deeply moving

Outstanding. Heartening as well as richly entertaining. A stunningly good read

Superbly realised. A funny as well as a sad book. Brilliant

A remarkable book. An impressive achievement and a rewarding read

A magical book. It's one of those books that makes you feel as though you have been on an emotional rollercoaster.

Brilliantly empathetic. Believe the hype: a brilliant, heart-warming book

In telling a painful story in the voice of a 15-year-old boy with Asperger's, Haddon broadens ordinary minds and helps to understand how they work, too.

Mark Haddon's portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind is a superb achievement. He is a wise and bleakly funny writer with rare gifts of empathy

I have never read anything quite like Mark Haddon's funny and agonizingly honest book, or encountered a narrator more vivid and memorable. I advise you to buy two copies; you won't want to lend yours out

Arthur Golden, author of 'Memoirs of a Geisha'

Original, moving and entertaining for adults as well as for older children

A delightful and brilliant book. Very moving, very plausible and very funny

A beautifully written book. Haddon is to be congratulated for imagining a new kind of hero, for the humbling instruction this warm and often funny novel offers and for showing that the best lives are lived where difference is cherished

To get an idea of what The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is like, think of The Sound and the Fury crossed with The Catcher in the Rye and one of Oliver Sacks's real-life stories

Beautifully told, and wonderfully poignant. Whenever I read it I feel a little bit sad, and then always much better for having read it.

The Red House

From the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time comes a novel about families and secrets - now re-jacketed with a stunning new cover look

Every bit as charmingly idiosyncratic as his brilliant The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

A hugely enjoyable, sympathetic novel...a tremendous pleasure...we have been absorbed, entertained and moved

Mark Haddon is terrifyingly talented... The Red House is thoroughly engrossing and enjoyable entertainment

Shockingly well-observed, gut-wrenchingly familiar and even heartbreaking at times

A masterly evocation of two dysfunctional, yet outwardly respectable families

With writing as elegant and truthful as this, readers will wish to keep their copies close at hand to savour again

Haddon has a true understanding of the human heart. Whether he is writing about the teenagers...or the adults and their misjudgements, he never puts a foot wrong. The Red House shows that Haddon is much more than a one-hit wonder: he is a real novelist, and he is here to stay

A bitingly honest tale of modern family life

It’s not every writer who can describe everyday domestic trauma with wit and without condescension. It’s a lot of fun to watch these midlife and adolescent crises come to the boil. And what shines is Haddon’s flair for observational comedy

I read it twice, both times with enjoyment

Weaving the stories of wealthy Richard, his meek sister Angela and their families, he draws the strands together to a poignant conclusion

As a fan of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time I was expecting this book to be special - and it was. A unique approach to family life and human relationships. Read it!

Haddon writes superb books for children, teenagers and grown-ups, and gets every voice in this one dead right...a master craftsman

Haddon achieves a remarkable mélange of streams of consciousness, snatches of books, music, TV, private thoughts, lists, letters, all intertwined with sharply observed vignettes of everyday banality, soaring flights of description

He is almost unrivalled at the notoriously tricky task of giving an authentic voice to children, and his ability to pinpoint the comic aspects of the everyday scenarios that arise on all vacations makes for an amusing read

A beautiful object that will grace any holiday home's unfixably wobbly bedside table. The cover feels like a cracked china plate, decorated with a clever re-working of the willow-pattern; like the contents, it is subtle and clever. Haddon writes superb books for children, teenagers and grown-ups, and gets every voice in this one dead right. He is also a master craftsman, so this complicated narrative moves with the speed and certainty of released, unhappy holidaymakers hitting the homeward road. So shove this in your holidaying bag. You may have made a mistake with the booking, but you won't with the book.

Haddon has penetrating compassion for even his least prepossessing characters. He’s frequently acute about the details of speech, response and self-presentation that differentiate people, and particularly so about the weird co-existence in us all of animal instincts and higher yearnings: hunger with grief, physical pain with spiritual need, hot lust with the desire to connect. His characters – the whole befuddling gaggle of them – are unquestionably felt, and felt for, and even loved. Haddon has created a family whose problems feel warmly immediate and utterly contemporary.

CURL UP WITH…The Red House by Mark Haddon. An English family’s holiday – and the midlife and adolescent crises that erupt during it – is scrutinised from eight points of view in Mark Haddon’s warm and witty novel, which showcases his flair for observational comedy.

Mark Haddon’s latest is his most mature work to date. It’s mature in terms of both content and style, and reading The Red House there’s a sense that this ‘growing up’ is quite purposely Haddon’s intention. An effortlessly engrossing and richly rewarding read.

It's an old saying that you choose your friends but not your family and the family reunion has been well-used in literature, but Haddon breathes new life into it. He's never shied away from the difficult subjects and he deals sensitively with a child's burgeoning homosexuality but his real skill, his genius is in his understanding of mental problems, that disassociation between the mind and the brain. It's a book which is so right in every small detail but a gem when taken altogether.

The book gave me the ever-changing, fascinating and the feeling that I was looking through a looking glass. The eight of them have their own secrets, longings and resentments which only make them as human as you and I. The writing zips in montages and sometimes it becomes difficult to figure who is carrying the baton, though once you get used to the writing, it isn’t difficult to figure. The language and symbolism is weaved very well for a story of a dysfunctional family. In some parts, it almost reminded me of Faulkner’s, “The Sound and the Fury”. The Red House by Mark Haddon is a rollercoaster of emotions and all it works surprisingly well and all adds up at the end of the book. I would definitely and most certainly recommend this read for the long summer weekend that comes up.

Haddon can marry extraordinary perception with uncluttered language... He also burrows into the minds of his protagonists with astute precision

It looks like Mark Haddon is about to have a great big success all over again

Brilliantly readable… Comic and bittersweet

Characteristically original, deftly observed...

A beautifully orchestrated novel that gently questions how we define success

[Haddon] shows a knack for portraying family dynamics…

Mark Haddon proves himself a master of the domestic drama

From the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time comes a novel about families and secrets 
 
Two families. Seven days. One house. 
 
Angela and her brother Richard have spent twenty years avoiding each other. Now, after the death of their mother, they bring their families together for a holiday in a rented house on the Welsh border. Four adults and four children. Seven days of shared meals, log fires, card games and wet walks. 
 
But in the quiet and stillness of the valley, ghosts begin to rise up. The parents Richard thought he had. The parents Angela thought she had. Past and present lovers. Friends, enemies, victims, saviours. 
 
Once again Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and A Spot of Bother, has written a novel that is funny, poignant and deeply insightful about human lives.

Agent Z And The Penguin From Mars

More totally bonkers behaviour from practical jokers, the Crane Grove Crew. A laugh-till-you-cry book from the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

Pools winner and total wazzock, Dennis Sidebottom has moved next door to Ben - bringing his squeaky-clean kids with him. The Crane Grove Crew - Ben, Barney and Jenks - soon find themselves on the Sidebottom blacklist. Accused of being troublemakers and a bad influence, they decide to shake up the Sidebottom universe with the help of Agent Z, a meteorite and a stolen penguin. It's Agent Z's finest hour! Mark Haddon has a sharp understanding of what makes children tick, and they will delight in the ever more daring, ever more hilarious missions of Agent Z and his three creators.

Two Stories

To mark the centenary of the Hogarth Press, Two Stories is an exquisite celebration of their first publication, including Virginia Woolf’s original story ‘The Mark on the Wall’ and a newly commissioned story ‘St Brides Bay’ from prizewinning author Mark Haddon.

Charming and entertaining ... Short and sweet

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. With her husband, the social reformer Leonard Woolf, she started the Hogarth Press in 1917, which published widely in fiction, poetry, politics and psychoanalysis, as well as publishing all Woolf’s own work. 
 
Mark Haddon is an author, illustrator and screenwriter – and long-term admirer of Virginia Woolf. His worldwide bestseller, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won seventeen literary prizes, including the Whitbread Award, and is now a stage play. His most recent book is a short story collection, The Pier Falls. He lives in Oxford.

Virginia Woolf was one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. With her husband, Leonard Woolf, she started the Hogarth Press in 1917: the list ranged widely in fiction, poetry, politics and psychoanalysis, and published all Virginia Woolf’s own work. 
 
Its first publication appeared in 2017: Two Stories, bound in bright Japanese paper, contained a short story from both Virginia and Leonard. Typeset and bound by Virginia, with illustrations by Dora Carrington, 134 copies were printed by Leonard using a small handpress installed in the dining room at Hogarth House, Richmond. 
 
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of ‘Publication No. 1’ this new edition of Two Stories takes the original text of Virginia’s story, ‘The Mark on the Wall’ (with illustrations by Dora Carrington), and pairs it with a new story, ‘St Brides Bay’, by Mark Haddon, a lifelong reader of Virginia Woolf. 
 
TWO STORIES also includes a portrait of Virginia Woolf by Mark Haddon, and a short introduction from the publisher about the founding of the Press.

Mark Haddon

'A marvel of a collection - suffused with curiosity, humanity and mystery, bold in its scope and virtuoso in its telling. Mark Haddon makes stories matter'

'In sentences as precisely cut as paper sculptures, Mark Haddon fits ancient myth to the cruelties and wonders of the present'

'Timeless spins on classic Greek myths . . . [Haddon] seems to be toying with the essence of storytelling, the way that it has persevered and sustained itself through the ages . . . The times may change but the stories remain the same in this ambitious, eclectic collection'

I’m looking forward to this – Haddon is reliably excellent

These delicately worked and impressively patient stories show us what other visions might reveal themselves when we are not in too much of a hurry to get to the end

A gripping exploration of narratives and those who control them…The tight prose and descriptive range are remarkable… There isn’t much room for redemption in this wise, immersive book: but… with a faithful mutt by your side, you’ll (usually) be all right in the end

Breathing new life into myths, Haddon heads into the labyrinth in this impressive collection which tackles transformation and transmutation

Compelling… Haddon’s writing, [is] always rock solid and frequently luminous… All [the stories] are complex, surprising, evocative and richly entertaining

Haddon follows his imagination from the human into the animal realm and beyond, into the divine… [in these] supple and emotionally involving tales

Eight engrossing, inventive retellings of myths… Dogs feature throughout, and it is humans who are the monsters. Highly recommended

[Haddon] moulds myths and fables into vivid new shapes

The bestselling author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time weaves ancient fables into fresh, unexpected forms and forges new unforgettable legends. 
 
'A marvel of a collection' Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time 
‘A consummate storyteller’ New York Times 
 
The myth of the Minotaur in his labyrinth is turned into a wrenching parable of maternal love – and of the monstrosities of patriarchy. 
 
The lover of a goddess, Tithonus, is gifted eternal life but without eternal youth. 
 
Actaeon, changed into a stag after glimpsing the naked Diana and torn to pieces by his hunting dogs, becomes a visceral metaphor about how humans use and misuse animals. 
 
From genetic engineering to the eternal complications of family, Haddon showcases how we are subject to the same elemental forces that obsessed the Greeks, as he reimagines stories from Laika the Soviet space dog on her fateful orbit to St Anthony wrestling with loneliness in the desert. 
 
'In sentences as precisely cut as paper sculptures, Mark Haddon fits ancient myth to the cruelties and wonders of the present' Francis Spufford, author of Cahokia Jazz

Mark Haddon

Praise for Dogs and Monsters

'A marvel of a collection - suffused with curiosity, humanity and mystery, bold in its scope and virtuoso in its telling. Mark Haddon makes stories matter'

'In sentences as precisely cut as paper sculptures, Mark Haddon fits ancient myth to the cruelties and wonders of the present'

'Timeless spins on classic Greek myths . . . [Haddon] seems to be toying with the essence of storytelling, the way that it has persevered and sustained itself through the ages . . . The times may chang ...

'A marvel of a collection - suffused with curiosity, humanity and mystery, bold in its scope and virtuoso in its telling. Mark Haddon makes stories matter'

'In sentences as precisely cut as paper sculptures, Mark Haddon fits ancient myth to the cruelties and wonders of the present'

'Timeless spins on classic Greek myths . . . [Haddon] seems to be toying with the essence of storytelling, the way that it has persevered and sustained itself through the ages . . . The times may chang ...

'A marvel of a collection - suffused with curiosity, humanity and mystery, bold in its scope and virtuoso in its telling. Mark Haddon makes stories matter'

'In sentences as precisely cut as paper sculptures, Mark Haddon fits ancient myth to the cruelties and wonders of the present'

'Timeless spins on classic Greek myths . . . [Haddon] seems to be toying with the essence of storytelling, the way that it has persevered and sustained itself through the ages . . . The times may chang ...

Books by Mark Haddon

Series by Mark Haddon

Agent Z

Articles featuring Mark Haddon

Books about ADHD, autism, and neurodiversity

6 unforgettable fathers in literature

The Porpoise by Mark Haddon: an opening to die for

The History of Hogarth Press

Mark Haddon on the origins of The Curious Incident

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