Mark Haddon

'An impressive line-up of established and emerging names' Sunday Times 'These eerie, unsettling stories are guaranteed to send shivers down your spine' Daily Express A rich collection of unnerving ghost stories and sinister histories conjured from the imaginations of bestselling authors: Mark Haddon, Jeanette Winterson, Andrew Michael Hurley, Sarah Perry, Stuart Evers, Kate Clanchy, Kamila Shamsie and Max Porter. From medieval castles to a Cold War nuclear bunker, locations are inspired by rumours of hauntings on English Heritage sites*. Let these immersive stories transport you to the past - the perfect book for the haunting season. *Also includes a gazetteer of EH properties which are said to be haunted.

This schools' edition of Mark Haddon's multi-award-winning novel adapted for the stage of the National Theatre by Simon Stephens is perfect for Key Stages 3 and 4. Featuring the play script from the Modern Plays edition but with the language adjusted for school use*, this edition includes a wealth of classroom activities for the English and drama classrooms. Christopher, fifteen years old, stands beside Mrs Shears's dead dog. It has been speared with a garden fork, it is seven minutes after midnight, and Christopher is under suspicion. He records each fact in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington. He has an extraordinary brain and is exceptional at maths, but he is ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. But Christopher's detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that turns his world upside-down. This educational edition in Methuen Drama's Critical Scripts series has been prepared by national Drama in Secondary English experts Ruth Moore and Paul Bunyan. Building on a decade of highly effective work and publications endorsed by national organisations and supported by teachers and consultants across Britain, each book in the series: > meets the requirements at KS3 and GCSE > features detailed, structured schemes of work utilising drama approaches to improve literary and language analysis > places pupils' understanding of the learning process at the heart of the activities > will help pupils to boost English GCSE success and develop high-level skills at KS3 > will save teachers considerable time devising their own resources. Simon Stephens's adaptation of Mark Haddon's bestselling, award-winning novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time offers a richly theatrical exploration of this touching and bleakly humorous tale. * The instances of stronger language have been tempered in this edition specifically for school use. Teachers may still wish to satisfy themselves that it is suited to the age of their pupils.

The first collection of stories from the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and The Porpoise. 'Terrifically compelling' GuardianA seaside pier collapses.

Ben's a born daydreamer. He's much rather be in the Sahara, or on a Viking ship than sitting in a boring maths lesson. Then Agent Z appears on the scene - and that means secret missions, cunning plans and careful strategies. And soon Ben and his friends, Barney and Jenks, realize that life on planet earth is rather exciting after all!

Ben's repulsive cousin, T.J., comes to stay. He discovers an incriminating videotape of Agent Z activities and blackmails Ben into becoming his slave.Meanwhile, Ben, Jenks and Barney embark on their first film, entitled Invasion of the Killer Bananas, in which T.J. unwittingly has a starring role. When T.J. disappears, however, the film points towards Ben, Jenks and Barney as murder suspects!In an attempt to clear their names, the boys use all the cunning of Agent Z to try and lure T.J. home and into the hands of the police . . .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.

He's planning to recover the buried loot any night now and Agent Z and the crew intend to be there when he does. 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.

Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year'Outstanding...a stunningly good read' Observer'Mark Haddon's portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind is a superb achievement...

Is a roller-coaster read with spaceships, spies and mortal danger!Jim and his best friend Charlie weren't looking for adventure, when they decided to bug the staffroom . . And now they have to explain to the police, the headmistress and their parents where they've been for a whole week - without mentioning the aliens.

Christopher is 15 and lives in Swindon with his father. When he discovers a dead dog on a neighbour's lawn he decides to solve the mystery and write a detective thriller about it. As in all good detective stories, however, the more he unearths, the deeper the mystery gets - for both Christopher and the rest of his family.

That Mark Haddon's first book after The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was a poetry collection perhaps came as a surprise to his legions of fans; that it is a collection of such virtuosity and range did not. The gifts so admired in Haddon's prose are in strong evidence here too - the humanity of his voices, the dark humour and the uncanny ventriloquism - but Haddon is also a writer of considerable seriousness, lyric power and surreal invention, and The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea combines bittersweet love-lyrics, lucid and bold new versions of Horace, comic set-pieces, lullabies, wry postmodern shenanigans (including a note from the official board of censors on "18" certificate poetry), and an entire John Buchan novel condensed to five pages. Consolidating Haddon's reputation as our most powerful myth-weavers and spell-makers, The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea also confirms him as one of the most outrageous and freewheeling imaginations at work in contemporary literature.

From the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time comes a novel about families and secretsTwo families.

This schools' edition of Mark Haddon's multi-award-winning novel adapted for the stage of the National Theatre by Simon Stephens is perfect for Key Stages 3 and 4. Featuring the play script from the Modern Plays edition but with the language adjusted for school use*, this edition includes a wealth of classroom activities for the English and drama classrooms.Christopher, fifteen years old, stands beside Mrs Shears's dead dog. It has been speared with a garden fork, it is seven minutes after midnight, and Christopher is under suspicion. He records each fact in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington. He has an extraordinary brain and is exceptional at maths, but he is ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. But Christopher's detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that turns his world upside-down.This educational edition in Methuen Drama's Critical Scripts series has been prepared by national Drama in Secondary English experts Ruth Moore and Paul Bunyan. Building on a decade of highly effective work and publications endorsed by national organisations and supported by teachers and consultants across Britain, each book in the series: > meets the requirements at KS3 and GCSE> features detailed, structured schemes of work utilising drama approaches to improve literary and language analysis > places pupils' understanding of the learning process at the heart of the activities > will help pupils to boost English GCSE success and develop high-level skills at KS3> will save teachers considerable time devising their own resources.Simon Stephens's adaptation of Mark Haddon's bestselling, award-winning novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time offers a richly theatrical exploration of this touching and bleakly humorous tale.* The instances of stronger language have been tempered in this edition specifically for school use. Teachers may still wish to satisfy themselves that it is suited to the age of their pupils.

He understands maths. What he can't understand are other human beings. When he finds his neighbour's dog, Wellington, lying dead on the lawn, he decides to track down the killer and write a murder mystery about it. But in doing so, he uncovers other mysteries that threaten to bring his whole world crashing down around him.

But that doesn't mean there isn't an answer to them'This is Christopher's murder mystery story. When Christopher decides to find out who killed the neighbour's dog, his mystery story becomes more complicated than he could have ever predicted. BACKSTORY: Meet the author and learn about the background to Christopher's story.

In any 24 hours there might be sleeping, eating, kids, parents, friends, lovers, work, school, travel, deadlines, emails, phone calls, Facebook, Twitter, the news, the TV, Playstation, music, movies, sport, responsibilities, passions, desires, dreams.Why should you stop what you're doing and read a book?People have always needed stories. We need literature - novels, poetry - because we need to make sense of our lives, test our depths, understand our joys and discover what humans are capable of. Great books can provide companionship when we are lonely or peacefulness in the midst of an overcrowded daily life. Reading provides a unique kind of pleasure and no-one should live without it.In the ten essays in this book some of our finest authors and passionate advocates from the worlds of science, publishing, technology and social enterprise tell us about the experience of reading, why access to books should never be taken forgranted, how reading transforms our brains, and how literature can save lives. In any 24 hours there are so many demands on your time and attention - make books one of them.Carmen Callil Tim ParksNicholas Carr Michael RosenJane Davis Zadie SmithMark Haddon Jeanette WintersonBlake Morrison Dr Maryanne Wolf & Dr Mirit Barzillai

Polar Bears is a captivating tale by award-winning writer Mark Haddon. Balancing humour and pathos, it tells of one man's struggle to love, support and live with someone suffering from a psychological condition. With an elliptical structure and teasing timeline, the play handles the subject sensitively, with vivid, sympathetically-drawn characters and nicely-balanced dialectics. Polar Bears is thought-provoking and intelligent, with echoes of Nietszchean philosophy, and it refuses to offer any easy answers for those embroiled in mental instability. The plot is as follows: John has never met anyone like Kay. When the moon is in the right phase, she is magnetic and amazingly alive. But when the darkness closes in, she is lost to another world, a world in which John does not belong. Mark Haddon is a hugely celebrated writer who is best known for his 2003 novel The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-Time, which won a string of prestigious awards, including the Whitbread Book of the Year. It quickly became an international bestseller, was printed in 32 countries and translated into 15 languages. Polar Bears is his first work for the theatre and enjoyed a high profile premiere at the Donmar Warehouse 1 April - 22 May 2010, directed by Jamie Lloyd and starring Jodhi May and Richard Coyle.