reif larsen

reif larsen

Jorge Luis Borges' short story "On Exactitude In Science" is about a guild of cartographers who were so fixated on perfection that they "struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it." Subsequent generations found it useless, and the map was left to crumble in the desert, where it became shelter for wild animals and derelicts. Reif Larsen recounts this story, and another, about a Grade 7 assignment in which his class was instructed to draw the world from memory.

"Some people breezed through it," he says, smiling. "I got really into it."

Reif Larsen liked his maps then - and now. "We had an atlas, an old National Geographic atlas from the '60s, and I would just pore over that. I'd make up stories about these crazy places. I think, like a good story, they give you enough to sink your teeth into. A map has place names, it has a scale, they're just so delicious to me."

tori murden mcclure

tori murden mcclure

As the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean alone -- in a rowboat -- and as the first person to reach the South Pole on skis, Tori Murden McClure personifies courage. But readers familiar with her triumphs cannot know the essential McClure -- who since 2004 has served as Spalding University's executive assistant to the president and vice president for external relations, enrollment management and student affairs -- until they've read her memoir, A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean. For this Louisville heroine, who is filled with fierce courage and propelled by rare grace, has not only challenged the elements but has fought for human dignity since the horrific day in her eighth-grade year when she failed to defend her brother.
She writes, "In the end, I know I rowed across the Atlantic to find my heart, but in the beginning, I wasn't aware that it was missing. In January 1998, I asked my uncle, 'If I write a book about my explorations, should I write it as a comedy, a history, a tragedy or a romance?' With a twinkle in his eye, he said, 'A romance -- it must be a romance.'"