David Abrams's Blog, page 181

Bad Days of Death (from Fobbit)

As many of you already know, Fobbit was substantially trimmed during the final editing process (excisions which, I believe, ultimately made it a better book).  Today, in observance of Veterans Day, I thought I'd share one of those passages which ended up on the cutting-room floor.  If I recall, these paragraphs were chopped from the final manuscript because the descriptions of suicide bombing and the resulting gruesome deaths were redundant.  The novel was already overloaded wi...

Friday Freebie: Illuminations by Mary Sharratt

Congratulations to Brian Bedard, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel by James Rollins.

This week's book giveaway is Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen by Mary Sharratt, released last month by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  Regular readers of The Quivering Pen will recall the trailer for Illuminations was recently featured on Trailer Park Tuesday .  Though I haven't yet had the chance to read her newest books, I really enjoyed Sharratt's previo...

Our Discarded Kodak Moments: Half in Shade by Judith Kitchen

Half in Shade: Family, Photography, and Fate
By Judith Kitchen
Coffee House Press
Reviewed by Amy Henry

I became aware of a kind of triangulation: me, the photograph, and its subject(s). From temporal advantage, I found I could supply what my subjects would never know—the future. I found myself in a kind of time warp in which I knew more than my subject, but less about my subject.  My interest was not in uncovering a hidden narrative, or in enhancing a known story, or in revealing a speci...

Character Actors: Movie Posters for The Hobbit, On the Road, and Les Miserables

Between now and Christmas, movie-goers might think they've wandered into a library thanks to all the literary classics which are due to hit screens.  The Hobbit, On the Road, and Les Miserables are just a few of the book-to-Hollywood adaptations we'll be seeing (also watch for The Life of Pi, Lincoln, The Silver Linings Playbook, and Anna Karenina--among others I might have missed.  Baz Luhrmann's production of The Great Gatsby was deemed unfit for holiday consumption and moved to t...

Rock the Vote, My Preciousss!

I have done my best to remain  politically neutral here at The Quivering Pen, pandering to neither red states nor blue states, but inhabiting a purple ground somewhere in between.

But now, on this fifth day of November 2012, on the eve of our most important national elections, I can no longer be silent.  I must urge you to cast your vote tomorrow with vigor and forethought.

When you're in the voting booth, curtain pulled across, please think carefully about your choices.  Yes, yo...

Friday Freebie: Bloodline by James Rollins

Congratulations to Jennifer Spiegel, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: These Things Happen by Richard Kramer.

This week's book giveaway is Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel by James Rollins. Released earlier this year by William Morrow, Bloodline is a thriller about medicine, genetics, and technology.  Here's the plot synopsis:  Galilee, 1025.  Infiltrating an ancient citadel, a Templar knight uncovers a holy treasure long hidden within the fortress's labyrinth: the Bachal Isu-...

A Writer's Chemistry Lab: Returning to my hometown with Fobbit

I grew up in Jackson, Wyoming.  Back then, it was a mid-sized town anchoring the bottom of the Jackson Hole valley--the Rocky Mountain Eden lined with the gray-blue teeth of the Tetons.  When I moved to Jackson in 1972, a good portion of its streets were still unpaved and drugstore cowboys still outnumbered the ski bums (though both of those elements were quickly changing).

My HometownMy father was the pastor at the First Baptist Church, a congregation that doubled, tripled, maybe ev...

Tim O'Brien on our 26 letters

I had the pee-my-pants pleasure of meeting Tim O'Brien at the Texas Book Festival this past weekend.  I'm here to tell you he's every bit as gracious, humble, and smart as you'd think the author of The Things They Carried  would be.  Just before I met him for drinks at a bar along Congress Avenue in Austin, I attended a ceremony at the State Capitol where he received the Texas Writer Award for 2012.  After he'd shaken the presenter's hand and acknowledged the pounding waves...

Fobbit Tour: Brazos Bookstore in Houston

Clean and serene.  Those are the two words which immediately sprang to mind when I walked through the doors of Brazos Bookstore in Houston.  The store is a thing of beauty--mellow lighting, dark-wood bookshelves, and clear, concise section labels.  The other striking feature of the store--and authors are going to love hearing this--is that books are displayed face-out whenever possible.  The ratio of spines to covers definitely tilts in favor of the latter at Brazos. ...

Friday Freebie: These Things Happen by Richard Kramer

Congratulations to Laura K. Moretz, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: Soul of a Whore and Purvis: Two Plays in Verse by Denis Johnson.

This week's book giveaway is These Things Happen by Richard Kramer, the creator of the legendary TV series My So-Called Life and thirtysomething (among others).  Published by Unbridled Books, These Things Happen is set among Manhattan’s high-powered liberal elite and told through an ensemble of endearing voices.  At the center of the story is fift...