Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christophers quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.
[...]... stars in every direction you look, so that the sky should be full of starlight because there is very little in the way to stop the light from reaching earth Then they worked out that the universe was expanding, that the stars were all rushing away from one another after the Big Bang, and the further the stars were away from us the faster they were moving, some of them nearly as fast as the speed of light,... things were numbers or an argument But there were other ways of putting things in a nice order And that was why I had Good Days and Black Days And I said that some people who worked in an office came out of their house in the morning and saw that the sun was shining and it made them feel happy, or they saw that it was raining and it made them feel sad, but the only difference was the weather and if they... they have pets and what is their favorite color and what do they know about the Apollo space missions and I get them to draw a plan of their house and I ask them what kind of car they drive, so I get to know them Then I don’t mind if I am in the same room as them and don’t have to watch them all the time So talking to the other people in our street was brave But if you are going to do detective work... doing in the house I didn’t know her well enough to know whether she was telling the truth about getting orange squash and Battenberg cake And I thought she might be ringing the police and then I’d get into much more serious trouble because of the caution So I walked away And as I was crossing the street I had a stroke of inspiration about who might have killed Wellington I was imagining a Chain of. .. get there, and they aren’t or people would notice I think people believe in heaven because they don’t like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on living and they don’t like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the rubbish The Reverend Peters said, “Well, when I say that heaven is outside the universe it’s really just a manner of speaking I suppose... with the earth for a very long time until the wood of the coffin rots But Mother was cremated This means that she was put into a coffin and burned and ground up and turned into ash and smoke I do not know what happens to the ash and I couldn’t ask at the crematorium because I didn’t go to the funeral But the smoke goes out of the chimney and into the air and sometimes I look up into the sky and I think... universe again And then there will be nothing to stop us from seeing all the stars in the world because they will all be moving toward us, gradually faster and faster, and we will know that the world is going to end soon because when we look up into the sky at night there will be no darkness, just the blazing light of billions and billions of stars, all falling Except that no one will see this because there... why their light never reached us I like this fact It is something you can work out in your own mind just by looking at the sky above your head at night and thinking without having to ask anyone And when the universe has finished exploding, all the stars will slow down, like a ball that has been thrown into the air, and they will come to a halt and they will all begin to fall toward the center of the. .. things that other people think are rude6 N Doing stupid things7 O Hitting other people P Hating France Q Driving Mother’s car8 R Getting cross when someone has moved the furniture9 Sometimes these things would make Mother and Father really angry and they would shout at me or they would shout at each other Sometimes Father would say, “Christopher, if you do not behave I swear I shall knock the living... to the window in the side Then I had some good luck When I looked through the window I could see a fork that looked exactly the same as the fork that had been sticking out of Wellington It was lying on the bench by the window and it had been cleaned because there was no blood on the spikes I could see some other tools as well, a spade and a rake and one of those long clippers people use for cutting . 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. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog. The points of the fork must. thrown into the air, and they will come to a halt and they will all begin to fall toward the center of the universe again. And then there will be nothing to stop us from seeing all the stars in the. 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears’s house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs