David Abrams's Blog, page 14
June 16, 2019
Sunday Sentence: City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.
She looked like a spinster who drank Ovaltine for dinner and gargled with salt water for vitality.
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
June 14, 2019
Friday Freebie: The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone by Felicity McLean
Congratulations to Nancy Bekofske, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie contest: The Rest of the Story , the new novel by Sarah Dessen.
This week’s giveaway is for The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone by Felicity McLean. One lucky reader will win a new softcover copy of the book. Keep scrolling for more about the Van Apfel girls and how to enter the contest...
Tikka Malloy was eleven and one-sixth years old during the long, hot, Australian summer of 1992. The TV news in the background chattered with deb...
June 13, 2019
Front Porch Books: June 2019 edition
Front Porch Books is a monthly tally of new and forthcoming books—mainly advance review copies (aka “uncorrected proofs” and “galleys”)—I’ve received from publishers. Cover art and opening lines may change before the book is finally released. I should also mention that, in nearly every case, I haven’t had a chance to read these books, but they’re definitely going in the to-be-read pile.
Animalia
by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo
(Grove Press)
Jacket Copy: The small village of Puy-Larroque, sout...
June 10, 2019
My First Time: Karol Ruth Silverstein
My First Time Getting “The Call”
I’m a daydreamer. Always have been. I know: shocker, right? It’s basically a requirement for writers. (At least that’s how I justify it personally, being a children’s book author and screenwriter.) So of course I’ve had lots of daydreams about becoming a successful writer—being interviewed about my projects, meeting fans, delivering acceptance speeches for awards I’ve won . . .
But let’s rewind a tick. Before all that—before the possibility of a glorious recep...
June 9, 2019
Sunday Sentence: Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
“On Turning Ten”
from Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
June 7, 2019
Friday Freebie: The Rest of the Story by Sarah Dessen
Congratulations to Bj Nooth, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie contest: Prairie Fever by Michael Parker.
This week’s giveaway is for The Rest of the Story , the new novel by Sarah Dessen (author of Saint Anything, Once and For All, and many others). One lucky reader will win a new hardcover copy of the book. Keep scrolling for the rest of the story about The Rest of the Story and how to enter the contest...
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Sarah Dessen comes a big-hearted, sweeping n...
June 2, 2019
Sunday Sentence: Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.
I can see them standing politely on the wide pages
that I was still learning to turn
Jane in a blue jumper, Dick with his crayon-brown hair,
playing with a ball or exploring the cosmos
of the backyard, unaware they are the first characters,
...
May 31, 2019
Friday Freebie: Prairie Fever by Michael Parker
Congratulations to Maureen Wanket, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie contest: To the Bones by Valerie Nieman.
This week’s giveaway is for Prairie Fever , the new novel by Michael Parker (author of The Watery Part of the World ). Here’s what Joan Silber, author of Improvement, had to say about the novel: “What a terrific book this is, wonderful and strange...a whole family acting out what can and can’t be forgotten, against the backdrops of prairie and range—characters so magnificently and som...
May 27, 2019
A Birthday in a War Zone
Happy Friggin’ Birthday to me.
When it’s your birthday and you’re in a war zone, the day is just another day in the year’s long trudge of days. Unless you really work hard at it, in a selfish manner, there is nothing special about your “combat birthday.” No mother is there, just outside the door of your hootch, waiting for the lights to dim and everyone to fall silent before she enters bearing the candlelit cake while starting the group singing with a slow drawled “Haaaaa-ppy Biiiirthday to yo...
May 26, 2019
Sunday Sentence: Angel Bones by Ilyse Kusnetz
Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.
And dragonflies, always dragonflies
transforming our human breath
into a winged thing―
dragonflies who carry us
partway to heaven, where our
words whisper to angels
astride their light-encrusted saddle...
