David Abrams's Blog, page 85

Friday Freebie: Above the Waterfall by Ron Rash and Darkness the Color of Snow by Thomas Cobb

Congratulations to Barbara Aiello, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: The Sweetheart Deal by Polly Dugan.

This week’s book giveaway is the dynamic duo of Above the Waterfall by Ron Rash and Darkness the Color of Snow by Thomas Cobb. Read on for more information about the novels.

In Above the Waterfall, a poetic and haunting tale set in contemporary Appalachia, New York Times bestselling author Ron Rash illuminates lives shaped by violence and a powerful connection to the land. Les, a long-...

Trailer Park Tuesday: Fallen Beauty by Erika Robuck and Miss Emily by Nuala O’Connor

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



As those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook know by now, I’ve gone full-immersion into the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay this month. I started by dipping into the Library of America edition of her Selected Poems and then my fever intensified when I went inside Nancy Milford’s pitch-perfect biography of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Savage Beauty . Along the way, I d...

My First Time: Lauren Baratz-Logsted

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 Lauren Baratz-Logsted, the author of more than 20 books for adults, teens and children. Her latest book is the novel The Sisters Club , which officially hits bookstores tomorrow. Over the years, Lauren has worked as a Publishers Weekly reviewer, a f...

Sunday Sentence: The Dead Lands by Benjamin Percy

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



The stars are like a fistful of salt flung across a black blanket.

The Dead Lands by Benjamin Percy

Friday Freebie: The Sweetheart Deal by Polly Dugan

Congratulations to Andrew Beck, winner of last week's Friday Freebie, Orient by Christopher Bollen.

This week's book giveaway is The Sweetheart Deal by Polly Dugan. Read on for more information about the book Elin Hilderbrand, author of Beautiful Day, called “the most romantic story I've read in years.”

Leo has long joked that, in the event of his death, he wants his best friend Garrett, a lifelong bachelor, to marry his wife, Audrey. One drunken night, he goes so far as to make Garrett promi...

Front Porch Books: August 2015 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 Edelweis...

Sunday Sentence: Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford

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



It’s Sunday and therefore it’s Sunday School, and I don’t want to go one bit. It looks like rain, and I hope it will rain cats and dogs and hammers and pitchforks and silver sugar spoons and hayricks and paper covered novels and picture frames and rag carpets and toothpicks and skating rinks and birds of Paradise and roof gardens and burdocks and French grammars, before Sunday school tim...

Friday Freebie: Orient by Christopher Bollen

Congratulations to Maria Giordano, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont.

This week’s book giveaway is Orient by Christopher Bollen. Keep reading for more information about the novel...

As summer draws to a close, a small Long Island town is gripped by a series of mysterious deaths—and one young man, a loner taken in by a local, tries to piece together the crimes before his own time runs out. Orient is an isolated town on the north fork of Long...

For the Beauty of the Earth: John McPhee’s Rising From the Plains

I never became a geologist for the simple reason that my mother embarrassed the hell out of me in 10th grade. On one particular day, she shamed me so thoroughly that the mechanism that produces the blush reaction in my neurological system overheated to such a degree it broke. And it was all because I was failing Geology. To this day, you only have to say the word “rock” and I turn beet-red. This becomes particularly troublesome when people around me start talking about rock-and-roll.

At any r...

My Favorite Books of 2015 (So Far)

The best books stick—sure as spaghetti thrown at a wall or oatmeal to the ribs—and these past eight months have been filled with books which have attached themselves to me and show no signs of ever letting go.

I’ve made good headway on my five-year reading plan of “the Essentials;” and I’ve even snuck in a quartet of re-reads ( To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Welcome to Hard Times by E. L. Doctorow, Peace by Richard Bausch, and The Stand by Stephen King)—something I hardly ever do. In all...