David Abrams's Blog, page 94

Fobbit the TV Series: "In Development"

Here’s some happy news to announce: a Showtime TV series based on Fobbit is now officially in the works.

Sarah Timberman and Carl BeverlyAs part of a multi-year overall deal with CBS TV Studios, producers Carl Beverly and Sarah Timberman are developing several new series (including ones based on The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr, Mr. Paradise by Elmore Leonard, and Crimes in Southern Indiana by Frank Bill). Here’s the mention of Fobbit at Deadline Hollywood earlier this week which describes the pro...

Friday Freebie: Tibetan Peach Pie by Tom Robbins

Congratulations to Denise Vik, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: The Daylight Marriage by Heidi Pitlor.

This week’s giveaway is the new book from Tom Robbins, Tibetan Peach Pie , now out in paperback. Here’s more information on the “true account of an imaginative life”:

Internationally bestselling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins delivers the long awaited tale of his wild life and times, both at home and around the globe. Tom Robbins’ warm, wise, and wonderfully weird novels—including...

Watchlist Countdown, Day 12: “The Transparency Project” by Alissa Nutting

     The Transparency Project was not a one-day test but a hired, permanent job that would last until her natural death. When the leader of the research team said the word “natural” in the phrase “natural death,” he emphasized it in a very unnatural way.

       from “The Transparency Project” by Alissa Nutting

“The Transparency Project” by Alissa Nutting (author of Tampa ) is disturbing in a squicky way...but, like a roadside car wreck splashed with the st...

Watchlist Countdown, Day 11: “Sleeping Where Jean Seberg Slept” by Katherine Karlin

     But Jean was a woman. A woman who had ideas. An attractive woman who had ideas, and this is why she had to be neutralized.

       from “Sleeping Where Jean Seberg Slept” by Katherine Karlin

A lot of characters in the Watchlist anthology are monitored, followed, interrogated, and harassed, but perhaps none meet as sad an end as Jean Seberg, the gamine, too-sexy-for-her-own good movie star of the mid-twentieth century. In Katherine Karlin’s short story...

Watchlist Countdown, Day 10: “What He Was Like” by Alexis Landau

     Once she took a photograph of us, the flash reflecting off the glass and I screamed, which my husband thought unnecessarily dramatic. When my husband confronted her, she explained in a lilting little girl's voice that she was only taking a Polaroid of her cat. After that we hung curtains in the living room and planted more ficus trees along the border of our property.

       from “What He Was Like” by Alexis Landau

In this short story by Alexis Landa...

Watchlist Countdown, Day 9: “Terro(Tour)istas” by Juan Pablo Villalobos

     This story begins when Joao sees a photo of the K2 mountain on Facebook. We'll call him Joao instead of using his real name in order to respect, at the very least, that miniscule detail of his privacy.

       from “Terro(Tour)istas” by Juan Pablo Villalobos, translated by Annie McDermott

If ever a story in Watchlist was epitomized by the unblinking, all-seeing eye on the cover design of the book, “Terro(Tour)istas” by Juan Pablo Villalobos is it. &nb...

Watchlist Countdown, Day 8: “Adela, Primarily Known as, The Black Voyage, Later Reprinted as, The Red Casket of the Heart. By Anon.” by Chanelle Benz

     We did not understand how she came to be alone. We wished to know more, the more that she alone could tell us.

       from “Adela, Primarily Known as, The Black Voyage, Later Reprinted as, The Red Casket of the Heart. By Anon.” by Chanelle Benz

I think fans of David Mitchell, George Saunders and Emily Bronte will particularly dig Chanelle Benz’ story in the Watchlist anthology. Benz describes “Adela, Primarily Known as, The Black Voyage, Later Reprin...

Sunday Sentence: Recipes for a Beautiful Life by Rebecca Barry

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


Meanwhile last night I dreamt that I lived in a house that had been literally built on a lawn, meaning the floors were all green grass, and I was standing in the middle of my living room, looking around thinking, Great, now someone is going to have to mow these damn floors.

Recipes for a Beautiful Life: A Memoir in Stories by Rebecca Barry

Bonus Sentence! From later in the book:
It was a...

Watchlist Countdown, Day 7: “Ladykiller” by Miracle Jones

     “We are gonna talk about Facebook in the future like our parents talk about cocaine,” he said.

       from “Ladykiller” by Miracle Jones

Miracles Jones’ story in the Watchlist anthology may start out in familiar territory landmarked by such things as Facebook, Buzzfeed listicles (“13 Things That Only People Born in 1990 Would Know”), and the ubiquitous Chili’s restaurant (the “place you went when your life was over and you were ready to die”), but it...

Watchlist Countdown, Day 6: “Scroogled” by Cory Doctorow

     “Now you're a person of interest, Greg. You're Googlestalked. Now you live your life with someone constantly looking over your shoulder.”

       from “Scroogled” by Cory Doctorow

Friends, I don't want you to freak out, but...They.  Are.  Watching.

Cory Doctorow's contribution to the Watchlist anthology, “Scroogled,” is a sharp needle pricking our skin, reminding us that it's Google's world; we just live in it. Resistance is futile.

Have a nic...