Aristotle's Cuttlefish

By Matthew Dooley

You can tell a lot about someone from what they misplace.

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.

Told through Lost Property Office vignettes - a snooker cue love story, a granny's tea cozy 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 an irresistible and witty portrait of a close-knit northern town and the lives those lost and found characters within it.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1787333957
• ISBN13: 9781787333956
• Release Date: September 2025
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.8" x 9.6"