David Abrams's Blog, page 34

Sunday Sentence: Monograph by Chris Ware

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


Having been in the inhospitable Texas heat and away from the cozy gloom of winter for years, I longed for the reassuring grey hopelessness of my childhood Nebraska winters.
Monograph by Chris Ware

Friday Freebie: The Midnight Line by Lee Child

Congratulations to Maria McMichael, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: The Big Christmas 2017 Book Giveaway.

This week, there’s only one book up for grabs, but oh what a book it is: The Midnight Line by Lee Child. This latest installment in the long-running Jack Reacher series is among the best of the bunch. I wholeheartedly agree with Kirkus Reviews when they say: “The book is very smart...and suggests something that has not been visible in the series’ previous entries: a creeping sadness...

Sunday Sentence: What’s Wrong With You Is What’s Wrong With Me by Christian Winn

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


The index finger is in my pocket feeling like a soft twig, or a bent piece of stale licorice in my warm palm.

“The Evidence of Reno” from
What’s Wrong With You Is What’s Wrong With Me by Christian Winn

Friday Freebie: The Big Christmas 2017 Book Giveaway

Congratulations to Lara Maynard, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers.


This week’s contest is another big box of books, full of random, eclectic, sure-to-delight reading gems. Specifically, ONE lucky reader will win a copy of ALL the following books:

Faith Fox by Jane Gardam The Shape of Ideas by Grant Snider Elmet by Fiona Mozley The Extraditionist by Todd Merer The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin by Stephanie Knipper The Unbelievable FIB: Over the...

Sunday Sentence: The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen

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


Ever since my father died a few years ago, my mother and I lived together politely.

“Black-Eyed Women” from The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Friday Freebie: The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers

Congratulations to Tammy Zambo, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: Mudbound by Hillary Jordan.

This week’s contest is for The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers, now out in paperback from Algonquin Books. Diane Chamberlain, author of The Silent Sister, had this to say about the novel: “Susan Rivers sets this spellbinding, haunting human drama against the backdrop of the Civil War. Told through exquisitely crafted letters and diary entries, the delicious pacing leads to revelations both i...

Sunday Sentence: The End We Start From by Megan Hunter

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


We are told not to panic, the most panic-inducing instruction known to man.

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter

Friday Freebie: Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

Congratulations to Barbara Tricario, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: the new Penguin Classics edition of Picnic at Hanging Rock , the 1967 novel by Joan Lindsay.

This week’s contest is for Mudbound by Hillary Jordan. One lucky reader will win a new paperback movie-tie-in edition of the 2008 novel The Washington Post Book World calls “A compelling family tragedy, a confluence of romantic attraction and racial hatred that eventually falls like an avalanche...The last third of the book is d...

Sunday Sentence: Woodsburner by John Pipkin

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


At every square and intersection in Boston, she heard shouts from vendors hawking oysters and fresh fish and hot corn and raspberries and milk and sweet doughnuts fried in pig fat. Everywhere the air smelled of cooking, as if America were one vast kitchen, and it seemed she need only breathe to fill herself with food.

Woodsburner by John Pipkin

Chasing Spiders With a Pen: Gary Reilly’s War

by Mark Stevens

I know jackshit about war. In particular, Vietnam.

I had a low draft number but then the draft was cancelled, right when I was thinking about Canada. Or some other escape. Bone spurs? A high school friend had died in Vietnam. It scared the hell out of me.

I’ve seen the movies and I’ve read the books:

Platoon. Saving Private Ryan. Deer Hunter. Full Metal Jacket.

Matterhorn , Tree of Smoke , Dog Soldiers , Going After Cacciato .

But, still, I can only imagine.

I watched the Ken Burn...