David Abrams's Blog, page 138

Friday Freebie: The Orphan Choir by Sophie Hannah

Congratulations to Chris Oleson, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker and Three Souls by Janie Chang.

This week's book giveaway is The Orphan Choir by Sophie Hannah.  Here's a plot synopsis from the publisher: Louise Beeston is being haunted.  Louise has no reason left to stay in the city.  She can’t see her son, Joseph, who is away at boarding school, where he performs in a prestigious boys’ choir.  Her troublesome neighbor has beg...

Trailer Park Tuesday: The Commandant of Lubizec by Patrick Hicks

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




Six months ago, I was privileged to read an early advance copy of a debut novel which is going to electrify and polarize readers.  Patrick Hicks' The Commandant of Lubizec  is, on the surface, a difficult book to read--just as Schindler's List was difficult to watch in certain places and just as most literature about the Holocaust is rightfully hard to swallow.  But...

My First Time: Jerri Bell

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 Jerri Bell.  Jerri retired from the Navy in 2008.  She is a graduate of the M.A. In Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University.  Her fiction has won prizes in the West Virginia Writers’ annual competition, among others.  She is...

Sunday Sentence: Flashes of War by Katey Schultz

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


I left one elbow joint, 28 bones, twice as many muscles and tendons, one wrist, and my entire left hand in the middle of a filleted Humvee on the outskirts of Karbala, Iraq.

Flashes of War by Katey Schultz

Front Porch Books: February 2014 edition

Front Porch Books is a monthly tally of books--mainly advance review copies (aka "uncorrected proofs" and "galleys")--I've received from publishers, but also sprinkled with packages from Book Mooch, Amazon and other sources.  Because my dear friends, Mr. FedEx and Mrs. UPS, leave them with a doorbell-and-dash method of delivery, I call them my Front Porch Books.  In this digital age, ARCs are also beamed to the doorstep of my Kindle via NetGalley and Edelweiss.  Note: most of t...

Friday Freebie: The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker and Three Souls by Janie Chang

Congratulations to Tisa Houck, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: Road to Reckoning by Robert Lautner.

This week's book giveaway is a special duo of magic and fable.  One lucky reader will win a copy of both The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker and Three Souls by Janie Chang.  Both books are trade paperbacks.

In The Golem and the Jinni, a chance meeting between mythical beings takes readers on a dazzling journey through cultures in turn-of-the-century New York.  Chava is a...

A Typhoon of Ideas: The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace

The Broom of the System
by David Foster Wallace
Reviewed by Derek Harmening

Zadie Smith ( White Teeth , NW ) said of David Foster Wallace: “He's so modern he's in a different time-space continuum from the rest of us.  Goddamn him.”  And maybe it’s best to keep that in mind while trying to wrap your head around his debut novel, The Broom of the System , a typhoon of ideas about language, identity, and purpose bound to make any fiction you read thereafter take on dimensions of meaning you’d...

Trailer Park Tuesday: One More Thing by B. J. Novak

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




HuffPo called it "the most hilarious book trailer ever."  I don't know if I'd go quite that far...but the faux French New Wave treatment for B. J. Novak's One More Thing is good enough to draw out a chuckle (or two or three) from moi at 5 a.m. on a Tuesday in the dark dead of winter.  Novak, aka Ryan the temp on The Office (as well as the show's occasional write...

My First Time: Susan Perabo

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 Susan Perabo, author of a collection of short stories, Who I Was Supposed to Be , and a novel, The Broken Places (both with Simon and Schuster).  She is Writer in Residence and an Associate Professor of English at Dickinson College in Carlisle,...

Sunday Sentence: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

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


Well!  He had known what love was--a sharp pang, a fierce experience, in the midst of whose flames he was struggling! but, through that furnace, he would fight his way out into the serenity of middle age,--all the richer and more human for having known this great passion.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell