David Abrams's Blog, page 73

Sunday Sentence: Wilderness by Lance Weller

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


A stray bullet whizzed overhead, clipping through the greenery to send leaves spiraling through the blue air and sounding for all the world on this fine spring day like a fat bee or horsefly off about its business..

Wilderness  by Lance Weller

Friday Freebie: Nothing But the Dead and Dying by Ryan W. Bradley

Congratulations to Tisa Houck, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie contest: The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee.

This week’s book giveaway is a signed copy of Nothing But the Dead and Dying by Ryan W. Bradley. If you’ve been paying even the tiniest bit of attention to the blog lately, you’ll know how much I love this short story collection. I’m very excited to be putting a copy into one lucky reader’s hands this week.

On the back cover of the book, you’ll see my words of endorsement: “Just l...

A Year of Reading: Best Books of 2015

Headlines-wise, 2015 was a disheartening year, one I’m glad is now in our rear-view mirror. I don’t have to list all the horrors here–you know them, you lived them–but I think we can all agree it was the kind of year that made you want to pull the covers over your head and stay in bed. Or go out and march in the street, trying to yell the political stupidity and incomprehensible violence back into silence. Whatever your method for dealing with the last twelve months, I think we can all agree...

Trailer Park Tuesday: Wilderness by Lance Weller

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



I normally reserve this space for trailers highlighting new and forthcoming books, but today I make an exception by reaching into the near-distant past to look at a novel which came out in 2012 (on the same day as my own Fobbit , as it turns out). Wilderness by Lance Weller is well worth a backwards glance. It’s been on my To-Be-Read list for a shameful amount of time. As this...

My First Time: Ryan W. Bradley

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 Ryan W. Bradley, author of the short-story collection  Nothing But the Dead and Dying , the novella Winterswim and the poetry collections The Memory of Planets and Mile Zero . Over the course of his many careers, Ryan has pumped gas, changed oil, paint...

Sunday Sentence: Confession by Bill Roorbach

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


She was an eyeful, clothes like skin.
Confession by Bill Roorbach

Friday Freebie: The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee

Congratulations to Benjamin Clark and Bart Zimmer, winners of last week’s Friday Freebie contest: Wilkie Collins: A Brief Life by Peter Ackroyd.

This week’s book giveaway is a galley copy of the new novel by Janice Y. K. Lee, The Expatriates . I don’t normally include galleys or advance reading copies (ARCs) in the Friday Freebie contests, but since the publisher is packaging The Expatriates in a fancy box (see below), I couldn’t resist. Read on for more information about the novel...

Janice Y...

Elizabeth Marro’s Library: Every Book Has a Story

Reader:  Elizabeth Marro
Location:  San Diego, CA
Collection Size:  Between 500 and 600.
The one book I'd run back into a burning building to rescue:  Sorry, I can’t pick just one. But now that you’ve got me worried, my picks will be grouped together on a shelf near the door along with a fireproof satchel big enough for all 21 novels in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, Volumes I through III of the Dictionary of American Regional English, AND a very beat-up 1936 edi...

A Year of Reading: Best Novellas of 2015

Last year, I read seven books which were more than 700 pages long. I also read thirteen collections of short stories whose words were compressed hard as gems. In the foggy terrain between the huge door-stoppers and the fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand stories, there was a healthy handful of novellas, those enjoyable works of fiction whose page lengths sprawl somewhere between the longer and shorter forms that the majority of readers are used to. Novellas are comfortable in their own skin and know...

Glancing Back at Pete Duval’s Rear View

On the first day of this year, as I was cleaning, organizing and otherwise fondling my massive book collection, I came across a slim paperback that quietly, almost shyly, squeezed its way between larger, louder book-spines. I recognized an old friend. My breath caught and a memory hiccuped to the surface.  I pulled out the book from where it was lodged between John Gregory Dunne and Stuart Dybek and stared at the pine tree air freshener on the cover of the advance reading copy I’d receiv...