The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

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Various deep thinkers over the years have thought that by studying crazy people we can learn about the human mind. There is often the thought that the insane person is more sane that the sane people in some way, and this has been the premise for a number of modern novels, such as One Flew Over the Cuckoos' Nest and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and Catcher in the Rye.

The premise of Catcher in the Rye is that the protagonist is borderline sane. It was successful because the protagonist says many things that people are already thinking but no one is expressing. It was a best-seller, then a lot of English teachers made it required reading. So it continues to sell, a quarter of a million copies a year.

It's not all that healthy of a book, tho. Here's a much better one:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Very intense, absorbing, yet charming. A look inside the thinking of an autistic child. I have no doubt this will be a classic; hopefully it will replace Catcher in the Rye in the schools. It's a LOT better. The kid sets out to investigate the death of this dog - who dunnit... he's barely able to cope but he's going to play detective and solve this small but difficult mystery. He winds up making an odyssey across London, which is as difficult for him as hiking across Antarctica would be for you or me.
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