About this Event
The Banned Book Club is led by Bryn, dedicated to reading and protecting the most important and threatened books for our generation.
This month, we’re reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon — a groundbreaking novel told through the perspective of a neurodivergent teenage boy who sets out to solve the mysterious death of a neighbor’s dog. What begins as a small investigation becomes a larger journey toward autonomy, truth, and self-understanding.
The book has been frequently banned and challenged in schools and libraries for its candid language, portrayal of disability, and its unvarnished depiction of family fracture — the very elements that made it revolutionary when it was first published. Critics of the novel often target the honesty of its emotional landscape, mistaking discomfort for harm.
Humane, funny, and quietly radical, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time invites readers to rethink what constitutes a “normal” way of seeing — and why some voices are still considered inconvenient to hear.
We will meet in person in the loft at our store at The Mark, 117 S. Pineapple Ave. The book club is $16, which includes a copy of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time to be picked up at Bookstore1 any time before our meeting.
Mark Haddon is the author of the bestselling novels The Red House and A Spot of Bother. His novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction and is the basis for the Tony Award–winning play. He is the author of a collection of poetry, The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea, has written and illustrated numerous children’s books, and has won awards for both his radio dramas and his television screenplays. He teaches creative writing for the Arvon Foundation and lives in Oxford, England.
ABOUT BOOK BANS:
Books are under profound attack in the United States. PEN America's latest report, Banned in the USA: The Normalization of Book Banning, found that 6,870 books bans were enacted during the 2024-25 school year, across 23 states and 87 public school districts. And everywhere, it is the books that have long fought for a place on the shelf that are being targeted. Books by authors of color, by LGBTQ+ authors, by women. Books about racism, sexuality, gender, history. PEN America pushes back against censorship and the intolerance and exclusion that undergird it.
Check out some frequently asked questions about book banning: https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questions/
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Bookstore1Sarasota, 117 S. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota, United States
USD 17.12
