David Abrams's Blog, page 176

Trailer Park Tuesday: The Plum Tree by Ellen Marie Wiseman

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday , a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies. Unless their last name is Grisham or King, authors will probably never see their trailers on the big screen at the local cineplex. And that's a shame because a lot of hard work goes into producing these short marriages between book and video. So, if you like what you see, please spread the word and help these videos go viral.





The trailer for Ellen Marie Wiseman's debut novel T...

My First Time: Lisa O'Donnell

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 Lisa O'Donnell whose debut novel, The Death of Bees , has just been published by Harper Collins.  Library Journal had this to say about the book: "Quirky characters with distinct voices enliven this sometimes grim and often funny coming-of-age...

Fobbit's going global!

Something I haven't talked about here at the blog is the fact that Fobbit is about to leave the shores of America and head over to Great Britain.  I'm pleased to announce that Harvill Secker will release Fobbit (in hardcover!) in the UK on April 4.  Harvill Secker is an imprint of Vintage Books (which is itself a division of Random House) and, in its various incarnations over the years, has published George Orwell, Günter Grass, J.M. Coetzee, José Saramago, Haruki Murakami,  Ri...

My Year of Reading: Best Books of 2012

I tried to whittle the list down to a Perfect Ten.  It was like I was Meryl Streep at the gates of the concentration camp being forced to choose between my favorite children.  I just couldn't do it.

Then I tried to make it a fiction-only list.  That would mean losing some worthy books like Dust to Dust and The Liberator.  I wasn't about to drop them from the list.

And then I made myself go through the list again with determined resolve: eliminate those books which I really,...

Friday Freebie: Spectacle by Susan Steinberg

Congratulations to Jodi Paloni, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: The Round House by Louise Erdrich.

This week's book giveaway is Spectacle by Susan Steinberg, a collection of short stories freshly-published by the fine folks at Graywolf Press.  Publishers Weekly had this to say about the book: “Experimental but never opaque, Steinberg’s stories seethe with real and imagined menace.”  For me, that sense of menace begins on the front cover with that skewed-perspective ph...

Publisher of the Year: Tin House Books

As I said in my review of Alexis M. Smith's Glaciers , "Sometimes you find the book, and sometimes the book finds you."  Such was the case for me this year with both Glaciers and its publisher, Tin House Books .  The happiest surprises in my life are the literary ones--moments like discovering the joyous poetry of Billy Collins while I was mired in self-pity during my year in Baghdad, reading the first paragraph of Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away , the librarian handi...

Trailer Park Tuesday: Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles by Ron Currie Jr.

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday , a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies. Unless their last name is Grisham or King, authors will probably never see their trailers on the big screen at the local cineplex. And that's a shame because a lot of hard work goes into producing these short marriages between book and video. So, if you like what you see, please spread the word and help these videos go viral.





Ron Currie Jr. (author) meets Ron Currie Jr. (character). ...

My First Time: Jojo Moyes

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 Jojo Moyes, author of Me Before You , a love story which USA Today has called “by turns funny and moving but never predictable.”  She is also the author of several other novels, including The Girl You Left Behind , The Last Letter from Your Love...

Dubble: DONE!

This is Dubble on its final day of revision, along with
my book of notes and my William Faulkner coffee mug,
which has been there as a good luck charm for all my books One hour and ten minutes ago, I called my wife upstairs to my office where I sat at my computer.  "Give me your hand."
"What are you--?" she said, then stopped when she looked at the screen.

I took her hand and together we clicked the cursor over the email Send button.  And, just like that, my final draft of Dub...

Friday Freebie: The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Congratulations to Sadie Caltrider, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows by Brian Castner.

This week's book giveaway is The Round House by Louise Erdrich, winner of this year's National Book Award.  With all that's been going on in my life lately, I haven't had the chance to read it yet, apart from the first paragraph (which is what I do with every new book to arrive at my house):

Small trees had attacked my parents’ house at the fou...