How to write a summary of a book

One of the main steps to summarize a text is to read it as many times as necessary. However, we cannot strictly follow this rule when summarizing a book. The previous steps that we follow before starting to write will be essential to make the process of summarizing a book agile and fast.

¿When and where? During reading, it is important to identify where and when the story happens.

¿Who are the main characters? In addition to the protagonists there will also be less important characters. During reading, you should pay attention to details such as the age and personality of each, and how the characters are related.

¿What is the knot and outcome? In each story there will be a problem and a solution.

Make an outline with the ideas you have underlined above. This step to summarize a book and make summaries of stories will be very useful when separating the main ideas from the secondary ones and to get a better idea of the order that you have to take when you summarize.

Once we have followed these tips for summarizing books, it is time to start writing the summary of a book. If you don’t know how to summarize correctly, it is always a good idea to inform yourself well before writing.

Book

The curious incident of the dog at midnight – Mark Haddon

“The Curious Incident Of The Dog At Midnight” is a book written by Mark Haddon in 2003. He had the Whitbread Book of the Year award, and the title of the text was inspired by a story called “Arthur Conan Doyle’s Silver Star” from Holmes.

Contents

Summary and synopsis

The play is about Christopher, a boy who is fifteen and has an autism spectrum condition. She lives with her father, and he told her that her mother Judy passed away two years ago. This young man discovered the corpse of a neighbor’s dog named Wellington, which was pierced by a garden fork.

But when the dog’s owner, named Shears, calls the police and Christopher turns out to be a suspect. When the police arrive, Christopher felt angry that they touched him and in his reaction, he hits the policeman, and for that he is arrested. But some time later they release him, giving him a warning.

In this way, Christopher is motivated to investigate about the dog’s death, although his father warned him to stay away from the problems of others. In the course of history, this character records his experiences in a book called by himself “murder mystery novel.” While doing her research, she manages to meet people she has never seen even though they lived in the same area, one of them being the elderly Alexander.

Later, Christopher’s father, Ed, finds the book and takes it from him after an argument with his son. But Christopher sets out to find him and when he is looking for him, he finds a treasure trove of letters that his mother had written to him after his alleged death. He is so shocked about the lie about his mother’s death that he lies in his bed unable to move, moans and vomits for a long time until his father returns home.

When his father returns, he realizes that his son read the letters and confesses to him that he lied about his mother’s death, and also says that the murderer to Wellington, after he argued with his owner, and admits that it was a mistake . After this, Christopher no longer has confidence in his father and thinks that he can also murder him. So he decides to run away to go live with his mother.

Analysis of “The Curious Incident of the Dog at Midnight”

This work tells us of a young protagonist named Christopher who seeks his independence, and manages to decipher the mystery of the murder of a dog. Just as he also manages to find his mother, whom he thought was dead thanks to the lies of his father, the dog’s killer.

For this reason he flees to achieve his freedom and to be able to meet his mother Judy and leave the world full of lies that his father offered him.
However, Christopher because he is autistic has many limitations to face the world around him, since he has trouble understanding others, struggling with new places and making important decisions.

In this way, he feels terrified and that is why he closes in on himself. But his desire for independence and freedom make him overcome the barriers, and that is why he rebels against his father and runs away. In addition we can observe this desire for independence in his planning for the university, in which he plans to live alone. But this fight of the protagonist character primarily involves gaining self-confidence, and getting out of his comfort zone, and thus achieving his dreams.

Quotes

“One thing is interesting because we think about it, not because it is new”
“I like the schedules because I like to know when things are going to happen”

“Mathematics is not like life, because at the end of life there are no simple answers”

“Time is nothing more than the relationship between the way different things change, like the earth revolving around the sun and the atoms vibrating …”

“Economists are not really scientists, and logicians think more clearly, but mathematicians are the best”

“He wore dreadlocks, which is what some black people wear, but he was white, and dreadlocks is when you never wash your hair and it looks like an old rope”

“Many things are mysteries. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have an answer. It’s just that scientists haven’t found the answer yet. “
“People always think that there is something special they cannot see, like the hidden side of the moon, or the other side of a black hole, or in the dark when they wake up at night and are afraid”

Books summaries by categories

A Study in Scarlet – Arthur Conan Doyle

A World Without End – Ken Follett

Books summaries by author

How to write a summary of a book

Summary and synopsis

Analysis of “The Curious Incident of the Dog at Midnight”

Quotes