David Abrams's Blog, page 154

Soup and Salad: Craig Lancaster Hits 100K, Wiley Cash's This Dark Road to Mercy,"The Grinning Fish" by Peter Benchley, A Naked Singularity Takes a PEN Prize, The "Discoverability Problem," 10 Forgotten Classics You Need to Discover, 50 of the Best Books Yo

On today's menu:

1.  Novelist and short-story writer Craig Lancaster is celebrating a milestone: the 100,000th sale of his books.  Though that kind of number has all the weight of an eyelash for someone like E. L. James, it's a really, really, really big deal for writers like Craig Lancaster and 99.3% of his fellow pen-pushers.  Lord knows I couldn't see the 100,000th sold of copy of Fobbit even if I had a pair of binoculars.  So, way to go, Craig!  If you'd like to he...

Soup and Salad: Craig Lancaster Hits 100K, Wiley Cash's This Dark Road to Mercy,"The Grinning Fish" by Peter Benchley, A Naked Singularity Takes a PEN Prize, The "Discoverability Problem," 10 Forgotten Classics You Need to Discover, 50 of the Best Books Yo

On today's menu:

1.  Novelist and short-story writer Craig Lancaster is celebrating a milestone: the 100,000th sale of his books.  Though that kind of number has all the weight of an eyelash for someone like E. L. James, it's a really, really, really big deal for writers like Craig Lancaster and 99.3% of his fellow pen-pushers.  Lord knows I couldn't see the 100,000th sold of copy of Fobbit even if I had a pair of binoculars.  So, way to go, Craig!  If you'd like to he...

My Library: Katey Schultz' Airstreamed Shelves

Reader:  Katey Schultz
Location:  Celo, North Carolina
Collection size:  Whatever can fit into 17 boxes
The one book I'd run back into a burning house to rescue:  The Hermit's Story by Rick Bass and Wilderness by Rockwell Kent (okay, two books)
Favorite book from childhood:   Morris' Disappearing Bag by Rosemary Wells
Guilty pleasure book:  Not a book, but still requires being "read"--USGS topographical maps of national parks I'd like to visit

In 2009, I stored 17 boxe...

Friday Freebie: The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes

Congratulations to Thomas Pluck, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives , edited by Sarah Weinman.

This week's book giveaway is The Girl You Left Behind , the new novel by Jojo Moyes.  Here's the publisher's description of what it's all about:

      Jojo Moyes’s bestseller, Me Before You, catapulted her to wide critical acclaim and struck a chord with readers everywhere.  The Chicago Tribune called it “Hopelessly and hopefully romantic."  Moyes...

Trailer Park Tuesday: More Than This by Patrick Ness

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


(Click the YouTube icon to embiggen)
The trailer for Patrick Ness' More Than This begins just as the book does: a boy drowns.  In the video, we see the death from the boy's point of view, a bubbly wash of waves, an arm shooting out of the water and reaching for rocks near shore, then the final surrender to the silence of death.  Ah, but is it really death?  That's...

My First Time: Mitchell Jackson

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 Mitchell Jackson.  His novel, The Residue Years , has just been published by Bloomsbury to great acclaim.  Jesmyn Ward, author of Men We Reaped , hailed its arrival by saying, “A wrenchingly beautiful debut by a writer to be reckoned with,...

Sunday Sentence: The Cineaste by A. Van Jordan

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




It's so easy to laugh at the banana peels laid before the lives of others.

from "Metropolis, restored edition" in The Cineaste by A. Van Jordan

Celebrating the 1,000th Quiver of My Pen

I woke up this morning feeling very milestone-y.  According to my Blogger statistics, this is the 1,000th post here at The Quivering Pen since I started blogging on May 2, 2010 ( "And so it begins..." ).  I don't know about you, but 2010 seems like the Jurassic Era in internet years and enough water has gone under the bridge since then that I could fill up Lake Erie.  Twice.

Not that I'm nostalgic or anything.  I'm always looking ahead here at The Quivering Pen, always scramb...

Good Medicine: A Tribute to Elmore Leonard

Car bombs exploded in Baghdad neighborhoods that summer like synchronized cannons.  Bodies incinerated.  Engine parts whizzed through the air like hot boomerangs.  Smoke, fire.  Death, destruction, chaos.

Meanwhile, I sat in my trailer on Camp Victory, a U.S. Forward Operating Base, two miles away–safe, cool, happy.  I was happy because I lay on my bed, The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard propped on my chest, my imaginative Reader mind somewhere far, far aw...

How to Tell a War Story: The Tender Soldier by Vanessa Gezari

The Tender Soldier
by Vanessa Gezari
Reviewed by Jerri Bell

"Afghans...value stories for reasons that have nothing to do with the information they contain," writes journalist Vanessa Gezari.  And readers should value Gezari's book,  The Tender Soldier , for reasons that have nothing to do with the information that the book contains about murdered social scientist Paula Loyd and the Human Terrain System, a contractor-run program that took Loyd to Afghanistan to collect cultural informati...