David Abrams's Blog, page 106

Friday Freebie: The Kept by James Scott, Glyph by Percival Everett, What Happened Here by Bonnie ZoBell, All I Have In This World by Michael Parker, Arts & Entertainments by Christopher Beha, Our Senior Year by John Abraham-Watne, The Gods of Second Chance

Congratulations to Michael Cooper, winner of last week's Friday Freebie contest: Closed Doors by Lisa O'Donnell and Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly.

This week's book giveaway is an eclectic grab-bag of titles to stuff your Christmas stocking (though, by the time the books arrive at the winner's house, it will be more like a New Year's gift).  Up for grabs: paperback copies of The Kept by James Scott, Glyph by Percival Everett, What Happened Here by Bonnie ZoBell, All I Have In This...

Friday Freebie: The Kept by James Scott, Glyph by Percival Everett, What Happened Here by Bonnie ZoBell, All I Have In This World by Michael Parker, Arts & Entertainments by Christopher Beha, Our Senior Year by John Abraham-Watne, The Gods of Second Chance

Congratulations to Michael Cooper, winner of last week's Friday Freebie contest: Closed Doors by Lisa O'Donnell and Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly.

This week's book giveaway is an eclectic grab-bag of titles to stuff your Christmas stocking (though, by the time the books arrive at the winner's house, it will be more like a New Year's gift).  Up for grabs: paperback copies of The Kept by James Scott, Glyph by Percival Everett, What Happened Here by Bonnie ZoBell, All I Have In This...

My Year of Reading: Best Book Covers of 2014

It seems appropriate to be talking about favorite book cover designs around this time of year.  Christmas, after all, is all about bright, attractive paper wrapped around surprises which are just a finger-rip away.  Sure, sometimes those concealed gifts turn out to be puzzling disappointments like socks embroidered with leaping trout or the annual Avon soap-on-a-rope from a well-meaning grandmother (I'm speaking from personal childhood trauma here), but even those Christmas duds are...

My Year of Reading: Best First Lines of 2014

Every book has to start somewhere, right?

These were some of the greatest opening lines of 2014 books I came across this year.  Whether it was through startling imagery, clever grammatical construction or just plain oddness, these first sentences worked hard to get my attention.  They entranced, they intrigued, they hooked, they pulled me inside, they persuaded me to linger.   Whether or not the rest of the book held up to that first promise isn't the issue here (though, in most...

My Year of Books: Best First Lines of 2014

Every book has to start somewhere, right?

These were some of the greatest opening lines of 2014 books I came across this year.  Whether it was through startling imagery, clever grammatical construction or just plain oddness, these first sentences worked hard to get my attention.  They entranced, they intrigued, they hooked, they pulled me inside, they persuaded me to linger.   Whether or not the rest of the book held up to that first promise isn't the issue here (though, in most...

My Year of Reading: By the Numbers

This should have been The Year of Writing (followed by The Year of Revision and then, if I'm lucky, The Year of Publication)....but instead of using the majority of my spare time to work on the novel-in-progress , I spent a LOT of hours turning pages.  This isn't entirely bad, of course.  As Samuel Johnson once said, “The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.”  Still, I'm sure my agent and e...

My First Time: Sarah Kennedy

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands.  Today’s guest is Sarah Kennedy.  After completing her M.F.A. in Poetry Writing, she began writing historical poetry.   Seven books of poems later, she turned her scholarly interests in Tudor England to fiction with The Cross and the Crown series.  Sarah...

Sunday Sentence: Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.


I bought a warmer coat with many ingenious pockets. You put your hands in all of them.

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

A Bookworm's Holiday Gift Guide

You probably finished your Christmas-gift shopping last June--or, if you are a super-industrious and insanely organized person, maybe you started shopping for Christmas 2014 way back in 2013.  But for the rest of us who haven't gotten everything wrapped up neatly with a bow (literally and figuratively), might I offer a few suggestions for the readers on your list?


The Best American Comics 2014 Edited by Scott McCloudThis bold, bright book collects the "best" work found in graphic novels, c...

Friday Freebie: Closed Doors by Lisa O'Donnell and Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly

Congratulations to Ian Hilgendorf, winner of last week's Friday Freebie, the big o' books (and a Blu-Ray DVD).

This week's book giveaway is a pair of recent hardback novels: Closed Doors by Lisa O'Donnell and Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly.  Read on for more info about the books.

In Closed Doors, a tense and brilliant tale from the national bestselling author of The Death of Bees , a young boy on a small Scottish island (where everyone knows everything about everyone else) discovers...