The Book Phantom Strikes Again

Today, my library copy of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet is due.  I will return it, as I await a copy of my very own from Amazon.  As you know, I like to sneak little mementos into books I release back out into the librosphere (tee-hee).  Here is what I made for The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet:

It’s a bookmark which I crafted with my own two little hands, sort of like those Artist Trading Cards people like to exchange.  It's a trifle, but I hope it brightens someone’s day.  Perhaps it will prompt that random reader to ask, “Hey, where’d this come from?” or “What kind of loony would make such a thing?” 

Pretty sneaky, sis!  Feel free to enjoy it yourself...

Ten Boredom Busters inspired by T.S. Spivet

1.      Play a rousing game of Boggle.

2.      Get a Cheeseburger Happy Meal and critique the crappiness of the toy inside.

3.      Compose a tune on a slide whistle.

4.      Make a placemat with your family tree on it.

5.      Take photographs of random things you pass on the road.

6.      Try to guess what’s in Gracie’s dish she calls “the Next Best Thing” and make up a recipe for it.

7.      Make Aunt Doretta’s cocktail, The Coyote Toyte, and see if you can drink it with “a sensational  degree of regularity”.

8.      Watch old cowboy movies.

9.      Read a comic strip and create a fifth panel for it.

10.  Drink spiked eggnog and make a hullabaloo with badminton rackets.

Book Club Recipe – T.S. Spivet’s Honey Nut Cheerios Bars

Poor T.S. Spivet – his brother died, his Father doesn’t understand him, his mother is self-absorbed.  I wish I could make it better for him – give him a cookie and a hug to make everything alright again.  His favorite food is Honey Nut Cheerios with which he says he has an almost “philosophical obsession”:

            “A dry bowl of cereal has a way of calling you.  I doused the Cheerios with milk and dove headlong into the delicious world of tiny crunchy doughnuts.  When I was done, I performed my favorite part of the ritual: the drinking of the leftover milk that had become lightly infused with sweet strains of honey, as if a magical honey cow had dispensed her milk right into my bowl.”        

-          from The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet

T.S. made me think about how I haven’t made any homemade goodies for my kids in a while (I think the last treat I made was at Christmas).  In order to feel I’m at least a smidge more nurturing than Dr. Clair, I decided to make some tasty (and easy) Honey Nut Cheerio Bars.  Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

½ cup honey (or Karo syrup if you don’t mind corn syrup)

½ cup sugar

½ cup peanut butter (if you use crunchy, you can omit the almonds)

½ cup almonds

5 cups Honey Nut Cheerios

Grease a 13 x 9” pan with cooking spray or butter.  (I line my pan with foil, then spray it with cooking spray).  Put honey and sugar into a large saucepan, stirring and bringing to a boil.  Add peanut butter, and stir until melted.  Remove from heat.  Pour in HN Cheerios and almonds, and stir until the nuts and cereal are completely coated.  Spoon mixture into greased pan, patting it down until nice and even.  Allow to cool for 15 minutes.  Cut into bars.  (If you used a foil liner, lift foil out of pan and cut.  The foil method makes for cleaner and easier cutting.)

Serve to kids (or your book club) alongside a large glass of cold milk so they get that yummy magical honey cow taste.

What to Read? Part 3: How to Make a Reading List

Last post, I introduced the Reader’s Formula for Selecting Books.  It looked like this:

Values ((Assets + x) – (Desires + y) – Liabilities – Requirements) = Optimal Reading List

This post, I am going to give an example from my reading life to demonstrate how to use this formula.  The first part of the formula is “values”, which I said are variable.  They determine what experiences we deem important or not, and influence our judgment and behaviors.  For simplicity, and to avoid sounding like a Sociology 101 text, I call this “life acting upon us”, because essentially, our life circumstances give rise to our values.

            So, what do I value these days?  What filter is life applying to me to influence which experiences I let in and which ones I release?  Lately, I have been feeling adrift, directionless.  After two years of working regularly to revise my manuscript, I find myself ready to give up on the project.  My mind resists quitting, but my behaviors tell me I already have.  I can’t make myself work on it anymore, yet nothing has replaced this piece of work in my mind.  No new ideas.  No desire to do anything else.  I am adrift on a plain of apathy.  How to find my way?

            I decide to read to take my mind off my failure.  I browse the stacks in the library, hoping to be inspired by something.  My eye lands upon the cover of a book, featured by the library staff.  It is called The Selected Works by T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen.  I have seen this book many times, and although intrigued by it, I never took it home.  This particular day, feeling lost and in need of a map to navigate my professional aspirations, I thought, “What better way to reorient myself than to read a book about a boy cartographer?”  If being lost was what life was giving me, then finding my way was what I valued.  Therefore, in my reader’s formula, v = Finding my way.

Review of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet

On many trips to the book store I have picked up and examined Reif Larsen’s The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, only to put it down again.  The diagrams and pictures on the pages I leafed through were certainly appealing.  The premise about a twelve year old cartography prodigy hopping a train cross country to the Smithsonian to receive the prestigious Baird award was original, but would the story be compelling and were those illustrations in the margins merely a gimmick to get me to buy a mediocre book?

            As it turns out, I didn’t buy the book, but I did borrow it from the library.  I guess I’m like my kids – a sucker for pretty pictures.  What I discovered was that the charts, maps, and diagrams were oh so much more than illustrations of the text.  These wonderful tidbits in the margins enriched the book, serving as a means to develop characters, drop in back story, explain historical and scientific references, highlight symbolism, and overall make me fall in love with quirky, young T.S.