David Abrams's Blog, page 124

Soup and Salad: John Warner's Tough Day, Joan Didion's Rejection, Literary Maps, The Stories of Elizabeth McCracken & David Guterson, Ulysses the Video Game, 23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read By Now, The Saddest Poem Ever Written, Reading to a D

On today's menu:

1.  Earlier this summer, The Millions released its much-anticipated Most-Anticipated Books Preview (Second Half of 2014 Version) .  In that list, you'll certainly find some anticipation-worthy names: Richard Ford, David Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Haruki Murakami, Denis Johnson, Laura van den Berg, and on and on the list goes.  One name not mentioned by The Millions: John Warner.  This is a shame because I, for one, am really looking forward to t...

Soup and Salad: John Warner's Tough Day, Joan Didion's Rejection, Literary Maps, The Stories of Elizabeth McCracken & David Guterson, Ulysses the Video Game, 23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read By Now, The Saddest Poem Ever Written, Reading to a D

On today's menu:

1.  Earlier this summer, The Millions released its much-anticipated Most-Anticipated Books Preview (Second Half of 2014 Version) .  In that list, you'll certainly find some anticipation-worthy names: Richard Ford, David Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Haruki Murakami, Denis Johnson, Laura van den Berg, and on and on the list goes.  One name not mentioned by The Millions: John Warner.  This is a shame because I, for one, am really looking forward to t...

Soup and Salad: John Warner's Tough Day, Joan Didion's Rejection, Literary Maps, The Stories of Elizabeth McCracken & David Guterson, Ulysses the Video Game, 23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read By Now, The Saddest Poem Ever Written, Reading to a D

On today's menu:

1.  Earlier this summer, The Millions released its much-anticipated Most-Anticipated Books Preview (Second Half of 2014 Version) .  In that list, you'll certainly find some anticipation-worthy names: Richard Ford, David Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Haruki Murakami, Denis Johnson, Laura van den Berg, and on and on the list goes.  One name not mentioned by The Millions: John Warner.  This is a shame because I, for one, am really looking forward to t...

Trailer Park Tuesday: The Home Place by Carrie La Seur

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.




Carrie La Seur's debut novel is set in central Montana and the book trailer for The Home Place takes full advantage of that rural windswept beauty in its two minutes.  As the author explains in her voice-over, "There are places in Montana where you have to travel hundreds of miles for medical care, for the most basic services, and what happens out on those homesteads, tho...

My First Time: Rochelle Jewel Shapiro

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 Rochelle Jewel Shapiro.  Her e-collection of short stories, What I Wish You'd Told Me is now out from Shebooks.  Rochelle's first novel, Miriam The Medium , was nominated for the Harold U. Ribelow Award.  Her second novel, Kaylee’s Gh...

Sunday Sentence: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

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


“How about peaches, dear?” murmurs Madame Manec, and Marie-Laure can hear a can opening, juice slopping into a bowl.  Seconds later, she's eating wedges of wet sunlight.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

War Stories From the Heart: Red, White and True, edited by Tracy Crow

A woman struggles to hold it together during a lingerie photo shoot with fellow military wives, an event that was supposed to be fun and boost morale for their men in the desert, but turns out to be a turmoil of emotions for the narrator.  A daughter follows her research from libraries to the living rooms of Holocaust survivors in a search for the truth about her father's World War Two experiences (which included liberating one of the most horrific concentration camps).  A female ve...

Bookstore of the Month: Annie Bloom's Books

Annie Bloom's Books
7834 SW Capitol Highway
Portland, OR 97219
(503) 246-0053
books@annieblooms.com
Annie Bloom's on Facebook
Annie Bloom's on Twitter

Quick quiz: Would you rather shop at a bookstore named "A Lucid Interval," or one called "Annie Bloom's Books"?  If you said the latter, then you're in luck the next time you visit the Multnomah Village neighborhood of Portland, Oregon; but if you prefer your bookstore more lucid and full of intervals...well, then you might want to get in your Wa...

Friday Freebie: Ed Falco Prize Package!

Congratulations to Rhonda Lomazow, winner of last week's Friday Freebie giveaway, the quartet of new novels: Fallout by Sadie Jones, Someone Else's Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson, Secrecy by Rupert Thomson, and The Wind Is Not a River by Brian Payton.


This week's contest celebrates the release of Edward Falco's new novel, Toughs , freshly-published by the good folks at Unbridled Books.  Here's what Kirkus Reviews had to say about the book: “The action moves from the mean streets of the Br...

Best Books of 2014 (so far)

Here's a depressing thought: it's nearly the end of summer.  What a bummer.  I don't know about you, but I haven't soaked up as much Vitamin D from sun rays as I'd hoped by this point.  There's a good reason for that: I've spent a lot of time indoors reading.  Also, it rained at near Noah levels for a couple of weeks here in Butte, Montana.  And then there was the WTF?! day it snowed.  In June.

It's a good thing I had some first-rate books to calm my seasonal nerv...