Mark Haddon Books In Order

Publication Order of Agent Z Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Picture Books

Publication Order of Plays

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Mark Haddon is a contemporary English novelist that is also known for his abstract painting, illustration and poetry writing. His best-known contemporary novel was “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time,” a young adult novel. Haddon was born in Northampton, England in 1962 to a father that was an architect. He went to the Uppingham School for his early childhood education and then Merton, College, Oxford for his higher education, where he majored in English Literature. Upon graduation from college, he moved to Scotland and got a job taking care of disabled persons. For the most part, he worked with patients suffering from autism and multiple sclerosis and this would significantly influence his later writing. In addition to taking care of patients, he also worked several jobs that included illustrator and cartoonist, at the mailing office and the theater box office. He got his fiction works features in a carton strip and several periodicals during this time. Haddon subsequently moved to Boston with his wife but only stayed for a year before moving back to England, where he got into abstract painting. Soon afterward, he began penning children’s fiction though he had for a time written for popular television shows and children’s books. He made his literary debut with the 1987 published title “Gilbert’s Gobstopper” which was followed by several others that he illustrated himself.

Mark Haddon’s biggest breakthrough came in 1993 when he published “Agent Z Meets the Masked Crusader.” The novel and the others in his popular series is set in a fictional city in present-day Britain. Agent Z refers to a secret identity that three schoolboys take when they are playing pranks on bored and unsuspecting people. Jenks, Barney, and Ben refers to themselves as the “Crane Grove Crew” and believe that through Agent Z, it is their mission to fight boredom. The series has four titles one of which was adapted into a situational comedy by the BBC in 1996. “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time” that is arguably his best-known work was an adult mystery that he published in 2003. The inspiration for the title is derived from “Silver Blaze” the popular Sherlock Holmes story. Haddon tells the story from the perspective of Christopher Boone, a fifteen-year-old boy. Boone is a high functioning autistic individual which is something Mark is well qualified to write about having been exposed to such people while in Scotland. According to Haddon, the book is not a textbook on Asperger’s but rather the impact it has on the patient’s life. The novel alludes to how such people may have refreshing outlooks that are almost impossible for the ordinary person to imagine. He wrote “A Spot of Bother,” his second adult novel in 2006.

Haddon was also indulging in screenwriting and wrote the popular BBC play “Fungus the Bogeyman” based on the Raymond Brigg’s story in 2004. In 2007, he wrote “Coming Down the Mountain” and was also a notable contributor to “Starstreet” and “Microsoap” which went on to become popular children’s shows. He was also a poet and he wrote the critically acclaimed collections “The Village Under the Sea” and “The Talking Horse” in 2005. Having done so much, he has been awarded several awards for his literary contributions over the years. Some of her accolades include the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and Best Novel at the Whitbread Book Awards.

Mark Haddon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” is a thrilling novel that tells the story of a brilliant fifteen-year-old. Christopher Boone knows all prime numbers up to 7057 and knows all the world capitals by heart. But he does not have any emotions though he relates very well to animals. Given that he is terrible at human relationships, he detests being touched. He has a superb logical brain though every day admonishments and interactions mean little for the 15-year-old. He lives on rules, patterns and a diagram he walks around with in his pocket. But one day Wellington the neighbor’s dog is killed and Boone who is so used to structure feels that his world is being threatened. He decides to investigate the killing and emulates the style of Sherlock Holmes who is his favorite detective given his logical style. It is a fascinating, poignant, and funny take of the world view of a high functioning autistic person.

Haddon’s “A Spot of Bother” is the story of George Hall. He is a little cautious, perhaps a little distant but certainly unobtrusive man struggling with manly bonhomie and the emotional burdens of being a father. The modern world demands that he talk about everything while he prefers to ignore most of the things that happen around him. While he could ignore a lot of things, some things just cannot be ignored. He is a sixty-one-year-old man who would prefer to settle down in retirement, listen to jazz, read historical novels and build a shed. But then Katie his tempestuous daughter tells him that she will be getting married to Ray – an inappropriate man that no one on the family likes. The family is up in arms but there is not much they can do once Katie has made her decision. Jamie her brother thinks the man has strangler hands while her mother hates the arguing and planning demands their upcoming nuptials have occasioned. Things start falling apart as the wedding draws nearer with bizarre happenings that could not have meant anything in happier times creating quite the storm.

Mark Haddon’s “The Red House” is about a wealthy doctor named Richard that invited Angela his estranged sister and her family to stay at his summer home in England. The man just got married and, in the process, inherited a willful stepdaughter named Angela. She has a good-for-nothing husband and three children that she had somehow alienated. The invitation sets the stage for a week of guilt and resentment which is reminiscent of many family gatherings across the world. While the stories seem simple enough, Haddon’s exquisite narrative technique makes for fascinating reading. He alternates between the viewpoints of the different characters to make the Red House a combination of illicit desires, long-held grudges, rightly guarded secrets, rising hopes and fading rams that all add to a showcase of modern family life that is deeply felt, comic and bittersweet. As he writes about each character, they become very real and the reader realizes that it is impossible for people to fully understand each other and this is true for every family.