David Abrams's Blog, page 25

Friday Freebie: Godsend by John Wray

Congratulations to Benjamin L. Clark, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: The Collector’s Apprentice  by B. A. Shapiro.

This week’s giveaway is for Godsend by John Wray, author of Lowboy ( I’m a fan ). Check out this fantastic praise for Godsend: “I’ve just spent every spare moment in a fever heat reading Godsend, and I’m truly dazzled by its daring literal and psychological border-crossings, its tonal complexity, and its pitiless compassion. Nothing is foreign to John Wray’s imagination....

My First Time: Darrin Doyle

Stuart DybekMy First Writing Workshop
My first workshop in the Master of Fine Arts program at Western Michigan University was taught by Stuart Dybek . The class met, as most graduate workshops do, in the evening. I remember being nervous but excited by the sense that I was now joining the “big leagues” so to speak. I was thrilled to have the chance to enter a community of people who devoured literature and longed to create art. I had taken undergraduate workshops, but I was optimistic, quite ho...

Sunday Sentence: Marlena by Julie Buntin

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


How can I describe the horrible pleasure of being not good?

Marlena by Julie Buntin

Sunday Sentence: Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

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


After Beeman observed that Guinness tastes like burnt toast with cream, I resolved to try it for breakfast.

Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

Sunday Sentence: Marlena by Julie Buntin

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


What a luxury, the endless velvet of teenaged sleep.

Marlena by Julie Buntin

Friday Freebie: The Collector’s Apprentice by B. A. Shapiro

Congratulations to Paul Thomley, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: The Banker’s Wife by Cristina Alger, An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena, and  Tell Me You’re Mine by Elisabeth Noreback.

This week’s giveaway is for The Collector’s Apprentice , the new novel by B. A. Shapiro, author of The Art Forger. The Collector’s Apprentice will be released by Algonquin Books next month, but one lucky reader will have a copy of the book in their hands well before then. Will it be you? Keep scrolling...

Sunday Sentence: The Collected Stories of Diane Williams

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


There’s a Dick and Jane quality to the prose, if Dick and Jane had been forcibly drowned and then brought back to life, maybe starved for a while, induced with madness but warned, at pain of death, to conceal it.

~Ben Marcus, from the Introduction to
The Collected Stories of Diane Williams

Friday Freebie: The Banker’s Wife by Cristina Alger, An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena, Tell Me You’re Mine by Elisabeth Noreback

Congratulations to Phil Milio, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: One-Sentence Journal by Chris La Tray.

This week’s giveaway is for three new thrillers which should get your pulse pounding:  The Banker’s Wife by Cristina Alger, An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena, and  Tell Me You’re Mine by Elisabeth Noreback. One lucky reader will win all three novels. Keep scrolling for more information on the books and how to enter the contest.



On an early morning in November, a couple boards a p...

Front Porch Books: September 2018 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.



Beautiful Country Burn Again
by Ben Fountain
(Ecco)

Jacket Copy:  In a sweeping work of reportage se...

Sunday Sentence: One-Sentence Journal by Chris La Tray

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


Every time I get outdoors,
     (up in the hills
     along the river
     wherever)
I feel like the world just gives and gives
and I'm not doing a damn thing
to give anything back.
One-Sentence Journal by Chris La Tray