David Abrams's Blog, page 29
June 10, 2018
Sunday Sentence: Separate Flights by Andre Dubus
Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.
He lives in a small town, so already he is out in the country; he runs past farmhouses, country homes, service stations. There are not many cars and most of the time he has the privacy of his own sounds—his steady breathing, his feet on the wet plowed and sanded blacktop—and, more than that, the absolute privacy of his body staking its claim on a country road past white hills and dark gr...
June 8, 2018
Friday Freebie: The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton
Congratulations to Nancy Bekofske, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: We Are Gathered by Jamie Weisman.
This week’s contest is for The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton. Here’s what Ron Rash, author of Serena, had to say about the book: “Landscape and destiny are inextricable in Tim Winton’s latest novel, and the result is a gritty realism that ultimately propels the story into the timelessness of a parable. All that I love about Winton’s work is here: the poetry of the colloquial, fully realiz...
June 4, 2018
My First Time: Siobhan Fallon
The First Time I Made It Through
The first time I set foot in the Middle East, I knew I would write about it.
I remember it so clearly right now, sitting at my computer, seven years later. I got off the plane at Amman amid chaos, confusion and noise. I entered the vast lines of Immigration with my three-year old daughter, the smells and the people crushing me on all sides. I knew my husband was waiting for me on the other side of Customs, but how to get there?
A man in a suit spotted the Americ...
June 3, 2018
Sunday Sentence: We Don’t Live Here Anymore by Andre Dubus
Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.
I am surrounded by painful marriages that no one understands.
We Don’t Live Here Anymore by Andre Dubus
June 1, 2018
Friday Freebie: We Are Gathered by Jamie Weisman
Congratulations to Kimberly Lehman, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: The War Bride’s Scrapbook by Caroline Preston.
This week’s contest is for We Are Gathered by Jamie Weisman. Here’s what Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You, had to say about the book: “As sparkling as a glass of champagne, and as moving as a wedding kiss, Weisman deconstructs the novel—and the nuptial—to tell a story about the guests, all of whom are bound to their pasts, created by their pain and elevated by th...
May 27, 2018
Sunday Sentence: The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene
Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.
She was very young and blond and unnecessarily arrogant: she looked like a child who has got nothing she really wants and so is determined to obtain anything, whether she likes it or not.
The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene
May 25, 2018
Friday Freebie: The War Bride’s Scrapbook by Caroline Preston
Congratulations to Sylvia Danforth, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie, a bundle of books by and about Montanans: Come West and See by Maxim Loskutoff, Arbuckle by Russell Rowland, The Weight of an Infinite Sky by Carrie La Seur, and The Bluebird Run by Greg Keeler.
In honor of Memorial Day, this week’s contest is for the latest in the “scrapbook novels” by Caroline Preston: The War Bride’s Scrapbook . As long-time readers of the blog may remember, I am a big fan of Caroline's previous book,...
May 24, 2018
Michael A. Ferro’s Library: A Love-Hate Story
Reader: Michael A. Ferro
Location: Rural Ann Arbor, Michigan
Collection Size: About 1,000
The one book I'd run back into a burning building to rescue: The first advance readers copy that I received of my debut novel, Title 13 . And I’d probably push a smoldering old lady out of my way to get to it, too.
Favorite book from childhood: Any of the Calvin and Hobbes collections (I proudly had them all) or the novelization of Star Wars. I wrote a really lousy essay comp...
May 20, 2018
Sunday Sentence: Articles of War by Nick Arvin
Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.
It was a curious thing, that in the time between the shots and the echo of the shots a man could die, that so monumental an event could occur in so trivial a passage.
Articles of War by Nick Arvin
May 18, 2018
Friday Freebie: Montana Bundle (Come West and See by Maxim Loskutoff, Arbuckle by Russell Rowland, The Weight of an Infinite Sky by Carrie La Seur, The Bluebird Run by Greg Keeler)
Congratulations to Shannon Feagans, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: Daphne by Will Boast.
This week’s contest is for a stack of books set in my beloved state of Montana. One lucky reader will copies of the following books: Come West and See by Maxim Loskutoff (whose cover is already in the running for one of my favorites of 2018), Arbuckle by Russell Rowland, The Weight of an Infinite Sky by Carrie La Seur, and The Bluebird Run by Greg Keeler. Keep scrolling for more information ab...
