When 12-year-old genius map-maker T.S. Spivet receives an unexpected phone call from the Smithsonian, life as normal—if you consider mapping dinner table conversation normal—is interrupted and a wild cross-country adventure begins. During his journey, T.S. discovers a secret family history in his luggage. And the farther he travels, the greater he understands home. All that he has learned is tested when he arrives at the capital and is welcomed into science's inner circle only to find that fame seems to overshadow ideas. T.S. struggles to find a way to map the delicate lessons learned about family and self, and questions whether there is a definitive way to communicate the ebbs and tides of heartbreak, loss, and loneliness in this exhilarating, funny, endlessly charming, and unbearably poignant debut novel.

Reif Larsen's profile page

Reif Larsen’s first novel, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet, was a New York Times bestseller and is currently being published in twenty-nine countries. The novel was a 2010 Montana Honor Book, a Border’s Original voices Finalist, and IndieBound Award Finalist and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. The novel is being adapted for the screen by French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet (director of Amélie).He studied at Brown University, and has taught at Columbia University, where he received an M.F.A. in fiction. He is also a filmmaker and has made documentaries in the U.S., the U.K., and sub-Saharan Africa. He lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.
 

"Miraculous... The novel is a cabinet of wonders, an odyssey of self-discovery, a family romance, a symphony of topography, geology and American history. The book hardly seems able to stay between its covers, bulging as it is with so many astonishments, so many crossings of fictional lines... Read it and marvel. In doing so, we gain a map of the world, a vision of our own troubled heads and hearts, a legend for our own bewildered epoch." - Bookpage

"Intellectually provocative." - Booklist

"Two predictions about The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet: readers are going to love it as much as I did, and few if any will have experienced anything like it. I'm flabbergasted by Reif Larsen's talent, and I was warmed by his generosity—if this book were a mug of Sundy's magic juice, I would surely hold it in two hands. The drawings that cascade and tumble through the pages could be a gimmick—cutie-poo tatting on the edge of a lace doily—and in the hands of a lesser novelist, that might have been the case. But because T.S. is such a vivid and realistic character (in spite of his Asperger's/OCD tics, not because of them), they add texture, humanity, and humor. This is a very funny book. I laughed until tears ran down my face when T.S. explains how to win at Oregon Trail, and if he were a real boy, I would seek him out so he could teach me how to win at the old Pitfall Harry game. Here is a book that does the impossible: it combines Mark Twain, Thomas Pynchon, and Little Miss Sunshine . Good novels entertain; great ones come as a gift to the readers who are lucky enough to find them. This book is a treasure." - Stephen King

"A seductive book, a tactile 3-D delight - Maclean's

"A cracking tale of adventure" - Winnipeg Free Press

"Like nothing you've ever picked up before...steeped in poignancy, humour and wisdom" - Vanity Fair