Aristotle’s cuttlefish

£22.00

Oddball Mr Daniels has spent his life sorting chaos into order. In the basement of a shabby Town Council building, he has meticulously labelled, guarded and sometimes claimed the lost property of Dobbiston’s residents for thirty years; a life’s work carried out mostly unnoticed. But when a bored teenager on work experience interrupts his routine, Mr Daniel’s underground world is revealed to be both a lonely prison of his own making and a refuge for his peculiar, uncurbed creativity. A place where hit-and-miss experiments to make the elixir of life, or record the music of the spheres, help him to grieve and search for existential truths.

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SKU: 9781787333956 Category: Tag: Publisher/imprint : Jonathan Cape
Page count : 224
Published on 5th June, 2025

Description

From the author of Flake, winner of the 2020 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize

Where do all the lost things go?

In Dobbiston, they’ll likely end up in the care of Mr Daniels, the long-time custodian of the local lost property office. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the town council’s shabby premises he has spent a lifetime quietly cataloguing the carelessness of his fellow Dobbiston residents.

But when something unexpected interrupts his routine, Mr Daniels is forced to embrace a little bit of life’s chaos.

Told through Lost Property Office vignettes – a snooker cue love story, a granny’s tea cosy and a kid’s toy on an intergalactic adventure – local histories are elevated to the momentous and profound, drawn with playful nostalgia and Dooley’s deadpan wit.

Aristotle’s Cuttlefish is a story about mislaid umbrellas, questionable scientific theories and unlikely friendship.

***

PRAISE FOR FLAKE

‘A joy… think of Joff Winterhart with a cone and a squirt of strawberry sauce’ Herald Scotland

‘(A) wonderful, elegiac debut… full of irresistible puns’ Observer

‘A cheerfully nostalgic trip into a north western english town of pub quizzes, crazy golf and crosswords’ Guardian

Additional information

Weight 0.5 kg
Dimensions 24.6 × 17.3 × 2.5 cm
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