The Young and Prodigious TS Spivet

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

Larsen has made an impressive mark ... spectacularly funny

Sunday Times

Reif Larsen's wonderful original debut, destined to please readers of all ages, is the Next Big Thing... echoes of Thomas Pynchon, Robert Coover and Nicholson Baker... a lively sophisticated narrative that looks to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Irish Times

A wilfully original and diverting book ... you can see exactly why it caused publishers to sit up. It is charming and kooky

Observer

Think Tom Sawyer with a passion for empirical science... one of the most original books of the year

Metro

Fantastical, funny and delightfully original

Esquire

Impossible to put down. Engagingly poignant and charmingly quirky ... Larsen is an accomplished writer, but he's also a hugely gifted illustrator ... It's a genius debut.

Daily Mail

Reif Larsen's debut novel combines meticulous eccentricity with an amazingly broad appeal ... the book is a thing of beauty in itself... TS's voice - and scientific pencil - enchant the reader ... TS's journey - towards forgiveness, understanding, adulthood, love - is a familiar one, but the views are spectacular.

Guardian

We believe in Spivet because Larsen gives us so much that is elegant and even pretty to look at. The book is beautifully produced with drawings and maps, yet the account of the train journey in this attractively naïve voice would be admirable even if it were not framed and accompanied by sketches

TLS

It has the makings of a cult classic...a deliciously ambitious book, a confident blast of ideas - and a beautiful object

Time Out

Highly entertaining journey...Larsen will go on great things

Independent

Something very special...pure genius

Sarah Broadhurst, The Bookseller

a mind-bending journey into the strange world of Spivet [...] Magical

Metro

The real star of the show is Reif Larsen, a first time American novelist...Some of the sly coming-of-age humour is reminiscent of Huckleberry Finn, but it is also very much a modern novel

Sunday Telegraph

An endearing and original coming-of-age story

Margaret Reynolds, The Times

A wilfully original and diverting book, full of carefully penned ephemera.

Tim Adams, Observer

The tale of map-obsessed outcast TS Spivet is captivating but it's the intricate illustrations - from the temperamental family toaster to the trajectory of his father's whiskey sips - that make this a rewardingly unique read.

Shortlist

Larsen's achievement is to have created a quirky, engaging, painfully vulnerable hero - not to mention a book that's truly lovely to look at, heavily illustrated throughout with examples of T.S.'s prize-winning maps and charts.

Daily Mail

Larsen's debut is engaging... plenty of intelligent perceptions, and a generous smattering of Spivet's drawings

Phil Baker, Sunday Times

The Selected Works of TS Spivet is a joy; a colourful feast of a book... few [books are] as bold as refreshing as Reif Larsen's debut... The account of [Spivet's] adventure is engrossing and full of allusions to classic American literature... There's a lovely hand-crafted quality to the book, and even in paperback form it is a beautiful object

David Evans, Independent on Sunday, Christmas round up