Matt Haig is the number one bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and six highly acclaimed novels for adults, including How to Stop Time and The Radleys. As a writer for children and young adults he has won the Blue Peter Book Award, the Smarties Book Prize and been nominated three times for the Carnegie Medal. His work has been published in over forty languages. @matthaig1 matthaig.com
Published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2013 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Matt Haig, 2013
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Quotation taken from interview with J. G. Ballard, © 2003, J. G. Ballard, used by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Ltd.
Lyrics from ‘This Must Be The Place’ by David Byrne courtesy Index Music Inc.
Extract from ‘That it will never come again’ by Emily Dickinson reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Bellknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Michael Franti quotation reproduced by kind permission of Guerilla Management Collective.
Extract from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace reproduced by kind permission of the Hill Nadell Literary Agency.
Extract from The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (Random House) reproduced by permission of David Higham Associates.
Extract from Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © 2004 Marcus du Sautoy.
Extract from Contact by Carl Sagan copyright © 1985 Druyan-Sagan Associates, Inc. formerly known as Carl Sagan Productions, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Druyan-Sagan Associates, Inc. This material cannot be further circulated without written permission of Druyan-Sagan Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 466 3
eISBN 978 0 85786 877 0
Typeset in Minion by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire
To Andrea, Lucas and Pearl
I have just got a new theory of eternity.
– Albert Einstein
Contents
(An illogical hope in the face of overwhelming adversity)
PART I
I took my power in my hand
Detached nouns and other early trials for the language-learner
The world as will and representation
