My guide to all the weird permutations of waking and sleeping consciousness – Oliver Sacks said he loved it, the UK’s Independent called it “exhilarating” and The New York Times’s Sandra Blakeslee said “audacious, enchanting, and often hilarious … this book will blow your mind.”

Finally, one answer to a question that is top of everyone’s mind: what is it like to be a 10-ton echolocating sperm whale with stumpy flippers but excellent aqua-dynamics?

My first book. It took me two months to write and they paid me six grand. At first I hiked every trail and tried to canoe around every lake, but I soon ran out of time (as well as trail descriptive adjectives – “rooty”); by the end of the summer I was peeling through campground parking lots in my Granddad’s old K-car, neck craned, noting distinguishing details.