The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet

by Reif Larsen

Book Overview

A brilliant, boundary-leaping debut novel tracing twelve-year-old genius map maker T.S. Spivet's attempts to understand the ways of the world

When twelve-year-old genius cartographer T.S. Spivet receives an unexpected phone call from the Smithsonian announcing he has won the prestigious Baird Award, life as normal-if you consider mapping family dinner table conversation normal-is interrupted and a wild cross-country adventure begins,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594202176
• ISBN13: 9781594202179
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: Penguin Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 2.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 7.6" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

My favorite book in the world!

My favorite book in the world, I really think everyone should read this book! Amazing from beginning to end 🤎

Unique (and bonkers) coming of age story

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet is one of the most interesting and unusual books of 2009 - and certainly the most well-designed. Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is the cartographically-obsessed child of a cowboy and an entomologist. Growing up in rural Montana, he fills his hours (and his notebooks) by mapping everything he can find - from shucking corn to the Continental Divide. Fortunately for the reader, the book is littered with maps, doodles and footnotes. Although many books try to make the margins critical to the story's appreciation, generally it winds up being a distraction. In this case, the beautiful notes and maps are stunning, well-integrated and a joy to behold. As a cartographer, Spivet is an undeniable success - so much so that the Smithsonian want him to represent them for a year (not realizing his true age...). Unfortunately, when it comes to the intangible and the unmappable, Spivet has a much harder time. He's still in shock from the traumatic death of his older brother, he can't talk to either of his (strange) parents, and his "conventional" older sister doesn't have time for him. Against all odds, Spivet decides to take the Smithsonian appointment - and with the clatter of pens, he hits the road... Although Spivet crosses the entire country, the real journey is inside his own head. Trapped in a railroad car for days, he has nothing to do but reflect, draw, and read his mother's journal. By the time he gets to Washington, he's in a very strange place (pun intended, I suppose)... Oddly, the book's one flaw is an occasional and inelegant demand for action. While Spivet is a wonderful protagonist, and his family are some of the most interesting characters I've ever read, the random bursts of high-octane activity (especially once Spivet arrives in Washington ) seem out of place. Spivet wanders into secret societies, anarchist plots and all sorts of strange cloak-and-dagger affairs. If the goal is to prove that the rest of the world is just as odd as Spivet, it succeeds. However, none of this is as interesting as a quiet five minutes with Spivet, his maps, and his thoughts. With a character this brilliant, I want more of him - his bizarre & lovable behaviour. Slightly-cinematic plot twists and turns are less interesting, and only divert the spotlight from where it belongs. All in all, an absolute must-read. And at the risk of sounding like a collector/snob, I'd suggest getting the biggest, loveliest edition you can find - the design of this book is terrific. And the release is perfect for the holiday season - this is a warm, unusual, beautiful gift of a book....

A masterpiece!

What can I say about this book? Even though I'm a librarian, and have books constantly available to me, I want to own this one. The many varied kinds of maps drawn in the margins of the page make this book an unforgettable read. But the story itself is magical and heartbreaking and fantastic and mysterious. Young Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is a mapmaking genius. Merely twelve years old and his maps have been published by the Smithsonian and other well-respected science magazines. In fact, his work is so impressive that the Smithsonian awards him the prestigious Baird Fellowship and want him to come speak in Washington, D.C. The only problem is, of course, they don't know he's 12. And his parents don't know he's been publishing his maps in important science journals. His family has been sundered and lost since the death of T. S.'s younger brother, Layton, tragically died, and they just don't communicate much anymore. So, T. S. decides to indulge his romanticized love of the rail system and hitch a ride on a train to D.C. alone. I was simply captivated by the elegant drawings and facile storytelling in this lovely book and I highly recommend it to anyone.

i'd select spivet

working in bookstores is sometimes an advantage. one advantage is getting hold of books before they're released onto an unsuspecting market. mostly, the books we get sent by various publishers consist of varying levels of wtf and omg, but sometimes - just sometimes - there's a nugget of gold. one such nugget of gold was the selected works of t.s. spivet by reif larsen, who managed to create something a bit out of the ordinary. it's your average road story, really, you know, like when someone is travelling across his country to escape something and reach what might be the magical land of oz so he can get some ruby slippers or something. and you were there, and so were you, and you, too, you cowardly lion! what makes larsen's book a little different is the voice of his narrator, little spivet. he's got himself a very eccentric little mind and my favourite moments were his conversations and attempts to conversate with a camper van which is being hauled on the back of a train our hero has hitched an illegal lift on. the margins of the book are hefty - which is why the books is shaped as it is, and they're filled to bursting point with illustrations and annotations which look like they belong in old science books. they're wonderfully drawn and provide another layer to the character more than just being sneaky gratuitous scribbles. i was equally impressed with them, and the illustrations dealing with little spivet's brother's death seemed to make the whole incident even more significant, or at least a little more cloudy. my only real complaint was the ending. i wasn't really fulfilled by the ending. it felt a bit too rushed and forced, and i guess i just didn't like it very much. a little too happy, you might say. as you know, i'm not the most intellecty sort of fellow, so perhaps i'm missing something. i wouldn't mind it being explained to me. i sat back after reading it and thought i'd just read a truly fantastic book, yet i had the feeling i had been cheated out of an ending. other than this minor glitch in the book's appeal, it is one i'd definitely recommend and have been doing so to those wonderful bookclub customers who wish to pursue something "a little different." it's a fine first novel, and i'm interested to see what a follow-up would look like. check out the little movie below to see what it's all about.

Flawed, but still great

Perhaps among my favorite books read in the past, oh, five years - and that's saying a lot, as I've read some jim dandies. The fact is, I think I would have enjoyed this book even without the maps - they are just an added bonus. My favorites, for pure laugh-inducing purposes: Page 16: Father Drinks Whiskey With a Sensational Degree of Regularity Page 107: Down on Your Luck? Ride the Rails! Page 290: Recipe for Gracie's Wintertime Special There are definitely some flaws here: The interlude in Chicago with the crazy guy is a little heavy-handed and I kept thinking that it would turn out to be some kind of dream. The fact that T.S. just happens to land on a train car with a Winnebago seems awfully convenient - but then again, why not? Also, I've read way too many books about preteen, socially awkward prodigies (Infinite Jest, Last Samurai, Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, etc) to be completely okay with this one... but somehow I was able to get over those facts pretty quickly and just go along for the ride. Overall, this book is excellent. Not as original as you might think (or as it's being marketed to be), especially if you've read the books I listed above, but I don't care. It is one of those rare books where completely unbelievable things happen in a completely believable world; despite the strange events of the novel, it is ultimately grounded in reality. It was great.

Wonderful, quirky coming-of-age novel

Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is a twelve-year-old genius living on a farm in the midwest. His mother, Dr. Clair, is a scientist searching for a rare beetle. His father is a farmer and cowboy. T.S. likes to think of himself as a mapmaker. He doesn't just draw maps of land, though, he draws maps of everything from facial expressions to gunshots. One day, he takes a phone call from the Smithsonian Institute and discovers that he has been selected for the prestigious Baird award, for which his friend Dr. Yorn has nominated him. That phone call prompts T.S. to sneak on trains in his quest to get to Washington, D.C., to give a speech and accept his award. Along the way, he meets a number of strange characters and makes a series of important realizations about his life, his age, and most importantly, his family. I'm not sure there are words to describe how I felt about this book. I haven't seen many blog reviews around and I'm really wondering why. This book is phenomenal. T.S. is a stunning character. He is clearly a genius but clearly a child at the same time; he makes amazing conclusions but then his child-logic can't always keep up with his scientific mind. I found this fascinating. I'm no genius, but I truly felt that with T.S. I was having a peek into the mind of someone like Stephen Hawking, although much more understandable. This book isn't for people who dislike footnotes, though. Me, I love footnotes, and this book is full of them, although usually on the sides, along with T.S.'s maps and observations. In my opinion, these little asides added immeasurably to the main story even if they required me to read a little bit slower. They flesh out this little boy's world and show us how he works, who he is friends with, and sometimes illuminate larger questions in the novel; for example, his facial diagrams allow us to see the way his father appears when he looks at T.S. in a way that words could not really match. The maps allows us to slowly feel the depths of pain which T.S. has been experiencing since his brother, Layton, killed himself; so much is revealed in that sibling relationship not through words, but through the implied sharing and affection in certain maps and footnotes. My favorite of all of the asides, though, was probably the three-prong diagram of why McDonald's appeals to adolescent boys. I also really, really loved the backstory behind T.S.'s family which is covered towards the middle of the book in sections which were from a notebook T.S. stole from his mother. Having had no inkling of his mother's writing talent, T.S. is startled to discover that she has been writing a novel of the life of one of his ancestors. I loved this story-within-a-story, both because it felt like historical fiction, my favorite genre, and because it revealed so much to T.S. about his mother, who has many more secrets than she lets on. I can't say that it moved the plot forward, but I never minded at all. In the end, this was a wonderful