David Abrams's Blog, page 26

Friday Freebie: One-Sentence Journal by Chris La Tray

Congratulations to Adrianna Rogers, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: Still Life With Monkey by Katharine Weber.

This week’s giveaway is for One-Sentence Journal by Chris La Tray. If you’ve been paying attention to my Facebook feed over the past few years, you’ll know I’m a die-hard fan of Chris’ blog which features his journal, literally one sentence to sum up each day’s events in a precise, vivid capsule. Gems like “From the comfort of sheets and blankets I felt the storm blow in overni...

Sunday Sentence: Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash

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


My mother had two placentas and I was living off both of them. I was supposed to have a twin.

Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash

Friday Freebie: Still Life With Monkey by Katharine Weber

Congratulations to Melissa Crytzer Fry, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: Mad Boy by Nick Arvin.

This week’s giveaway is for the new novel by Katharine Weber, Still Life With Monkey . Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage, calls it “A brilliantly crafted novel, brimming with heart.” This week, one lucky reader will win a new paperback copy of the novel. Will it be you? Keep scrolling for more information on the book and how to enter the contest.


Duncan Wheeler is a successful archite...

Sunday Sentence: Adultery and Other Choices by Andre Dubus

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


Jack wanted to escape his marriage; she wanted to live with hers; they drove north to the woods and made love. Then they dressed and drove back to what had brought them there.
Adultery and Other Choices by Andre Dubus

Friday Freebie: Mad Boy by Nick Arvin

Congratulations to B. J. Nooth, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: Northland by Porter Fox.

This week’s giveaway is for one of the very best of the 2018 novels I’ve read so far: Mad Boy by Nick Arvin. Picture a Dickens waif wandering across the Maryland battlefields of the War of 1812 (the one that oh so often gets lost in the shuffle of our nation’s major conflicts). Arvin paints a vivid battle scene (just as he did in Articles of War ), and manages to balance the bloodshed with the buoyan...

Front Porch Books: August 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.



The Current
by Tim Johnston
(Algonquin Books)

Jacket Copy:  In the dead of winter, outside a small...

Trailer Park Tuesday: The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist by Michael Downs

This afternoon, a pleasant woman with a smoker’s cough is scheduled to pry open my mouth, reach into its moist depths with her gloved fingers, and yank on my teeth like they were gems cemented to a river bottom and she was the world’s most determined jeweler. There will be pain, there will be a clenching of torso muscles, there will be the airy, sloppy suction of spittle. But when all is said and yanked, I will emerge from the dentist a new man with a new tooth. The only lingering traces of t...

My First Time: Tony Ardizzone

My First True Writing Teacher
“I’m not here to be your friend,” he said as he stood before us, fifteen or so nervous undergrads sitting around a long wooden table in a windowless seminar room on the second floor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s creaky English Building. The faint smell of chlorine hung in the air. We could hear the occasional soft thuds of volleyballs and the muted whistles of referees. At the time, Illinois’ English department was housed in an old building t...

Sunday Sentence: Anne Sexton: A Biography by Diane Wood Middlebrook

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


Sexton wasn’t writing poems anymore; she was writing anguished appeals for attention.

Anne Sexton: A Biography by Diane Wood Middlebrook

Friday Freebie: Northland by Porter Fox

Congratulations to Pauline Logan, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: The Strange Case of Dr. Couney by Dawn Raffel.

This week’s giveaway is Northland by Porter Fox. Subtitled “A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America's Forgotten Border,” it’s about that other border (the one without the plans to build a wall) and it’s high on my list of books to read before New Year’s Eve (we’ll see if that actually happens). But you, dear reader, have the chance to win your very own copy and start reading it no...