David Abrams's Blog, page 82

Soup and Salad: Jane Smiley on Why Fiction Matters, Staging Karl Ove Knausgaard, Staging The Other Woman, September Covers, Awards Season is Upon Us, Lauren Groff Finds the Joy, Joshua Mohr and His Three Strokes

On today’s menu:

1.  It’s been nearly a year since I served some Soup and Salad here at the blog, but I think it’s about time I resurrected this news-bite feature. To welcome its return, I thought I’d share some recent thoughts on the power and purpose of novels, brought to you by the never-uninteresting Jane Smiley, who writes at The Center for Fiction’s website ,

The novel is not like any other form of art. It takes up a subject, makes use of a voice and exposes us to that subject and th...

Trailer Park Tuesday: City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg

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


If you read one book in October, make it City on Fire —and with its 944-page length, Garth Risk Hallberg’s debut novel may very well be the only book you read this month. It wouldn’t be time wasted. I’m halfway through it now and I’m here to tell you this book is a luxurious bath of words. City on Fire is big in all senses of the word: not just in page volume, but in the scope...

My First Time: Emily Ross

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 Emily Ross, author of the young adult mystery/thriller Half In Love With Death , forthcoming from Merit Press in December. Set in the 1960s, Half in Love With Death was inspired by the eerie, true story of serial killer Charles Schmid, aka “The Pied...

Sunday Sentence: City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg

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



The coffee tasted like water colored brown with a crayon.

City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg

Friday Freebie: Emma by Jane Austen (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Congratulations to Jonathan Butters, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie, Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff.

This week’s book giveaway is the gorgeous new edition of Emma by Jane Austen, published by the fine folks at Penguin Classics. Even if you already own Emma (and if you don’t, why the dickens not?), you’ll want to add this dee-luxe, annotated edition to your shelf. Released in honor of the novel’s 200th birthday, it is handsomely packaged and comes with a new introduction and notes by G...

Everybody Read Now: The Middle on ABC-TV

Since it premiered in 2009, I have watched every episode of The Middle on ABC. I have laughed, cried and, when the truths about parenting hit a little too close to home, squirmed uncomfortably. Mike and Frankie Heck of Orson, Indiana represent the Everyfamily of modern America with their foibles and follies raising three children, Axl, Sue and Brick. They take imperfect parenting and turn it into classic comedy TV. Hilarious stuff, each and every week.

But I think the latest episode, “Cutting...

My First Time: Gayle Brandeis

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 Gayle Brandeis is the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write , Dictionary Poems , and the novels The Book of Dead Birds , which won Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize for Fiction of Social Engagement, Self Storage , Delta Gir...

Sunday Sentence: American Copper by Shann Ray

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


Her voice seemed dislodged from her mouth, as if the words were not connected to her or were not hers at all but rather small black birds that darted into the sky.

American Copper by Shann Ray

Judging American Cuisine and Lassoing Unicorns: Edna St. Vincent Millay on Food and E. E. Cummings

Reading Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford in short sessions each day is like taking licks from one of those giant pinwheel all-day suckers you used to get as a kid at the county fair. Remember how you tried to discipline yourself to just twenty licks per day because you never wanted the beauty of that pastel-colored sugar to end? (Even though the sucker eventually grew furred with dust bunnies traveling through the air and became inextricably stuck to the top of your nightstand.)

So it goes with...

Friday Freebie: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Congratulations to Jim Mastro, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekback, Past Crimes by Glen Erik Hamilton, The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman, Everyone Has Their Reasons by Joseph Matthews, and The 3rd Woman by Jonathan Freedland.

This week, I’m pleased to give away a copy of the new novel by Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies . It’s been getting rave reviews from all corners of the literary map--like these, for instance:

“With Fates and Furies Lauren Groff...