Reasons for not reading - web suggestions

Well there has been one major reason why I have not been reading a lot recently and that reason is Spotify

If you are looking for a way to waste your time then you could do a lot worse than investigate this streaming music service

also I highly recommend this reading resource Fantastic Fictionfor helping you find out more about your favourite series and also finding new authors to explore

Selected Works of T.S. Spivet

It's a long time since I've posted anything to the blog and it feels as if I haven't been reading that much but one book I really had to blog about was The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet



There is something about this book, it has a certain charm that I can't explain - I've been describing it to people as an American The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time They both concern special young men who go on a journey borne out of their own idiosyncrasies. Spivet may or may not be autistic but he is certainly extremely intelligent and talented



The book is peppered throughout with annotations, maps, drawings and diagrams which go someway to explaining how he thinks. You see T.S. Spivet draws maps and charts of everything, whether that be mundane activities, geographical features or incidences of people walking alone he charts, maps and records all these things and analyses what they mean



When he is invited to take up a post at the Smithsonian Museum (put forward by his friend Dr. Yorn) little do they know he is only 12 - and he has to travel across the USA the only way a 12yr fugitive can - on the railroad.



I thoroughly enjoyed this story and you do really get behind T.S. and are immediately on his side - you are frustrated with his parents, angered at those who use him and you want a happy ending to come - it does of sorts but leaves lots of questions open - you want there to be more but more may harm what you have just read.



The pleasure in the book is in it's overall presentation, it is different in size to a normal hardback and the annotations mean the text is broken up so you are never bogged down in one piece of story for too long. Quirky is good and here is hoping that Reif Larsen can keep a good level of quirky going onto his next book