David Abrams's Blog, page 3

Sunday Sentence: Nebraska by Kwame Dawes

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


       It grows dark quickly here,
       and God no longer strolls
       the gardens, calling out
       the name of things with delight;
       not even the damp clump
       of a name.

Transplant in  Nebraska by Kwame Dawes

Here’s to Blithesome May (and e. e. cummings)

Its the last day of National Poetry Month and Ive been celebrating with poetry old ( nineteenth-century poets ) and new ( Kwame Dawes , Eileen Myles , and M. L. Smoker to name a few). Im also still thinking about the sometimes-tangled prosody of e. e. cummings whose Collected Poems dominated most of my 2019 in Verse. Today, I thought Id say goodbye to April (you cruellest of months) and bid Hello to what the poet calls blithesome May in an excerpt from one of his earlier, more-accessible poems.

...

Fresh Ink: April 2020 edition

Fresh Ink  is a monthly tally of new and forthcoming booksmainly advance review copies (aka uncorrected proofs and galleys)Ive 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 havent had a chance to read these books, but theyre definitely going in the to-be-read pile.


The Swallowed Man
by Edward Carey
(Riverhead)

Jacket Copy:  The ingenious storyteller Edward Carey returns to...

Sunday Sentence: Nebraska by Kwame Dawes

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


In truth, I have been reprimanded by my own guilt / for how easily have I silenced the noises of a world entering the terror of a dictatorship, / how I have pretended that in time it will passhow I have carried in me the hope in / a constitution that says in another five years, the terrible order will change / a kind of jubilee and yet I know that I am ignoring the bones scattered in the...

Friday Freebie: Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him by Tracy Borman

Congratulations to Paul Thomley, winner of last weeks Friday Freebie contest: Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles.

This weeks contest is for Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him by Tracy Borman. We hear a lot about the monarchs wives, but what about the men surrounding Henry? As Booklist says of this weeks book: [Bormans] beautifully perceptive and dynamic reassessment of Henry VIII places emphasis, as the books subtitle indicates, not on the monarchs infamous marriages but rather on the...

My Library: Elizabeth Kadetsky’s Suitcase

While on a seven-month Fulbright Nehru fellowship to India this spring, Elizabeth Kadetsky (author of The Memory Eaters ) initially packed light when it came to reading material. However, she notes: I had a box of books shipped to me, and acquired many more, while also shedding books as I finished them. I wound up never finding an apartment on the fellowship, and traveling from place to place to stay in hotels and bed and breakfasts with three suitcases, one entirely filled with books. I got a...

My First Time: Philip Cioffari

My First Time: A Long Time Coming
Id waited many, many years before it happenedwhat I like to call, to borrow a term from baseball, a triple play. Mine was the literary/dramatic version. The year was 2005.

Its easy now that my fifth novel, If Anyone Asks, Say I Died from the Heartbreaking Blues , is being published to forget or minimize the time and effort it took me to get here. As Ive said, prior to the triple play I want to tell you about, Id been writing a long time.

Upon completion of my...

Sunday Sentence: Nebraska by Kwame Dawes

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


       This is a ritual of sin: after clearing a long
       path, behind me the pox of snow returns.

from How I Became an Apostle in  Nebraska by Kwame Dawes

Friday Freebie: Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles

Congratulations to Laura Strachan, winner of last weeks Friday Freebie contest: Mastering the Process by Elizabeth George.

This weeks contest is for Simon the Fiddler , a new novel by Paulette Jiles (author of News of the World ). Heres what Booklist had to say about the novel: Imbued with the dust, grit, and grime of Galveston at the close of the Civil War, Simon the Fiddler immerses readers in the challenges of Reconstruction. Jiles brings her singular voice to the young couples travails, her...

Friday Freebie: Mastering the Process by Elizabeth George

Congratulations to Phil Milio, winner of last weeks Friday Freebie contest: Prairie Fever by Michael Parker.

This weeks contest is for Mastering the Process by Elizabeth George, a plump volume of writing advice which would be perfect for all of you out there using this shelter-in-place time to finally work on that long-delayed manuscript (yours truly is still trying to get unstuck from first gear, or maybe I'm just low on gas...). As Lisa See, author of The Island of Sea Women and several...