David Abrams's Blog, page 55

Book Radar: Paul Auster, Martyn Burke, Paula McLain, Kathleen Alcott, Michael Crichton, Christian McKay Heidicker

Book Radar rounds up some of the latest publishing deals which have caught my eye, gathered from reports at Publishers Marketplace, Galley Cat, office water-coolers and other places where hands are shaken and promises are made. As with anything in the fickle publishing industry, dates and titles are subject to change.

From Publishers Lunch, news of the following book deals...


4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster ( The New York Trilogy , The Book of Illusions , and Sunset Park ), about the four parallel lives of...

My First Time: Michael Copperman

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands. Today’s guest is Michael Copperman, author of Teacher , a memoir about teaching in the rural public schools of the Mississippi Delta. Copperman has taught writing to low-income, first-generation students of diverse background at the University of Oregon for the last decad...

Sunday Sentence: Melancholy Accidents by Peter Manseau

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


Cleaning guns, dropping guns, “overhandling” guns, allowing guns anywhere near children or dogs—all of these occasionally lethal activities add an often overlooked dimension to the question of whether it is guns that kill people or people who kill people: while people who kill people with guns often don’t mean to, guns are so good at it that people sometimes don’t even have to try.

Melanc...

Friday Freebie: Dead Inside: Poems and Essays About Zombies, edited by Lynn Houston, Susan Allspaw Pomeroy and Jennifer Spiegel

Congratulations to Bart Zimmer, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie giveaway: The Trouble with Lexie by Jessica Anya Blau.

This week’s book contest is for Dead Inside: Poems and Essays About Zombies , edited by Lynn Houston, Susan Allspaw Pomeroy and Jennifer Spiegel. I have two copies of the anthology to give away to two lucky readers. Will you be one of them? For more about the monsters that haunt us, be sure to check out the My First Time essay by Lynn, Susan and Jennifer.  Now here’s...

Drinking Dandelion Wine

Ray Bradbury was a wizard with words, casting spells left and right, mesmerizing the readers of his 27 novels and 600 short stories. He sometimes wrote about hypnotists, magicians, and soothsayers, but the real wizardry happened in the elixir of his words.

Nowhere is the magic more potent than his 1957 book Dandelion Wine , which the cover of my 1979 Bantam Books edition calls “The captivating novel of a boy’s magical summer.” Dandelion Wine is not quite a novel, neither is it a traditional co...

Front Porch Books: August 2016 edition

Front Porch Books is a monthly tally of books—mainly advance review copies (aka “uncorrected proofs” and “galleys”)—I’ve received from publishers, but also sprinkled with packages from Book Mooch, independent bookstores, Amazon and other sources. Because my dear friends, Mr. FedEx and Mrs. UPS, leave them with a doorbell-and-dash method of delivery, I call them my Front Porch Books. In this digital age, ARCs are also beamed to the doorstep of my Kindle via NetGalley and Edelweiss. Note: many...

Trailer Park Tuesday: My Father Before Me by Chris Forhan

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.




In 1973, when Chris Forhan was 14, his father went into the carport of the family’s home, ran a garden hose from the exhaust pipe of his car to the driver’s window, and lay down across the front seat. His wife found his body the next morning. Decades later, when Chris was his father’s age, he wanted to know why, without a word of warning, Ed Forhan chose to abandon his wife an...

My First Time: James Carpenter

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands. Today’s guest is James Carpenter, author of the new novel No Place to Pray . James Carpenter began writing fiction after an eclectic career in education, business, and information technology. His stories have appeared in numerous publications including The Chicago Tribune...

Sunday Sentence: Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

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


To touch her face was that always new experience of opening your window one December morning, early, and putting out your hand to the first white cool powdering of snow that had come, silently, with no announcement, in the night.

Dandelion Wine  by Ray Bradbury

Friday Freebie: The Trouble with Lexie by Jessica Anya Blau

Congratulations to Stephen Furlong, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie giveaway, the bundle of three new novels: All the Lasting Things by David Hopson, Intrusion by Mary McCluskey, and After Disasters by Viet Dinh.

This week’s book contest is for The Trouble with Lexie by Jessica Anya Blau. I’ve got a new paperback copy of the novel to giveaway to one lucky reader. Read on for more information about The Trouble with Lexie...and, in case you missed it three years ago, be sure to read about ...