On his bedroom wall, Haddon had the Weetabix Solar System Wall Chart with information about each planet. Under Pluto it said, disappointingly: ‘Not enough is known about Pluto.’Not that (as Haddon himself admits) he has an especially good memory. Haddon squirts out excoriating snapshots of his mother, each one perhaps helping to exorcise the memory of her for him and his sister, to whom the book is dedicated. In this lavishly illustrated memoir, Haddon shows us the inside of his catastrophising, depression-prone mind. Another, in a section on Haddon’s fascination with Georges Perec, is of a beer-drinking, cigarette-smoking bear with blood-soaked face and paws.