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Posts by David Abrams

The first-edition cover of "Three Blind Mice and Other Stories" by Agatha Christie shows a sprung mousetrap with a scrap of something unidentified bleeding out of the trap wire with the book's title printed across it.

The first-edition cover of "Three Blind Mice and Other Stories" by Agatha Christie shows a sprung mousetrap with a scrap of something unidentified bleeding out of the trap wire with the book's title printed across it.

The snow beat in a soft flurry against the windowpanes. It made a whispery, uneasy sound.
~"Three Blind Mice," Agatha Christie

#SundaySentence

3 months ago 15 0 0 0
A library hardcover edition of "Endless Night" by Agatha Christie showing the title in a white band in the upper portion of the jacket design, while the rest is in a blood-red color with Agatha Christie's name prominently displayed. In the lower right-hand corner, there is the black silhouette of a bird being stabbed by a knife.

A library hardcover edition of "Endless Night" by Agatha Christie showing the title in a white band in the upper portion of the jacket design, while the rest is in a blood-red color with Agatha Christie's name prominently displayed. In the lower right-hand corner, there is the black silhouette of a bird being stabbed by a knife.

One doesn't recognise in one's life the really important moments—not until it's too late.

"Endless Night," Agatha Christie

My #SundaySentence comes from my annual "Christie-mas" read.

What was YOUR favorite sentence of the week? Share with us, using the hashtag!

4 months ago 18 1 0 0
A leaden gray sky over a rock promontory, studded with junipers and pines. The candlewick-shaped spent bloom stem of a yucca plant reaches up on the right. This was taken at a Grand Canyon viewpoint.

A leaden gray sky over a rock promontory, studded with junipers and pines. The candlewick-shaped spent bloom stem of a yucca plant reaches up on the right. This was taken at a Grand Canyon viewpoint.

"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." #SundaySentence #JamesJoyce #TheDead

4 months ago 27 5 0 1
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Oh, my brother, we’re lighting the torches and heading out into the darkness to find the words and bring them back to you.
#sundaysentence
#lateinvocationformagic
#jimdaniels
#msupress
#netgalley

4 months ago 20 3 0 0
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...if the place is legitimate there is no pool, there is no second floor, just leather against flesh, flesh against bone, rope slapping concrete, slapping earth, that machine gun fire of sideways fists against speed bag.

#sundaysentence Lucas Schaefer, The Slip

4 months ago 17 1 0 0
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My #sundaysentence this week performs a delightful left turn, courtesy the great @danchaon.bsky.social: “She kept her face stern and neutral, the kind of face you made when you chopped the head off of a chicken.” Honestly, what a terrific novel this is.

4 months ago 30 3 1 0
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A #SundaySentence from John Cheever's story, "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill."

4 months ago 17 1 0 0
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#SundaySentence (s)

But I began then to think of time as having a shape, something you could see, like a series of liquid transparencies, one laid on top of another.

Cat’s Eye
~Margaret Atwood

4 months ago 27 4 2 0
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A blue Buddha statue sits next to a copy of “The Best American Short Stories 2025” with other copies of previous Best American Short Stories in the background on the shelf.

A blue Buddha statue sits next to a copy of “The Best American Short Stories 2025” with other copies of previous Best American Short Stories in the background on the shelf.

I loved “Seven Stories About Tammy” by @elizmccrack.bsky.social so much, I couldn’t pick just one #SundaySentence so here are two:

Tammy's breath was as soft and insubstantial as health food.

They'd given her a glass of white wine that tasted green as a tree, with an aftertaste of violin.

4 months ago 20 0 0 1
The cover of SWEET HUSK by Corrie Williamson

The cover of SWEET HUSK by Corrie Williamson

The land wears her corset of cement.

My #SundaySentence comes from
“Ruin Song (Number 8)” from SWEET HUSK by Corrie Williamson

Readers, what was YOUR favorite sentence of the week? Join the weekly celebration of language and literature at the hashtag!

4 months ago 17 1 0 0
A grey cat does a "face palm" ("face paw"?) as he sits next to a copy of The Annotate Christmas Carol. Today's #SundaySentence comes from the Introduction to this W.W. Norton annotated edition.

A grey cat does a "face palm" ("face paw"?) as he sits next to a copy of The Annotate Christmas Carol. Today's #SundaySentence comes from the Introduction to this W.W. Norton annotated edition.

The fact is, Mr. Dickens writes too often and too fast….If he persists much longer in this course, it requires no gift of prophecy to foretell his fate—he has risen like a rocket, and he will come down like the stick.
—Abraham Hayward on Charles Dickens in The Quarterly Review, 1837
#SundaySentence

5 months ago 16 1 1 0
A copy of "Bloomland" by John Englehardt

A copy of "Bloomland" by John Englehardt

What if I told you the most beautiful novel I read this year was about a mass shooting at a school?

Read the full review of BLOOMLAND by John Englehardt at Van-ishing America: davidabrams.substack.com/p/what-im-re...

#FridayReads #bookreview #bestbooks

5 months ago 2 0 0 0
A man in full makeup (green hair, white face makeup) and dress (purple jacket, green vest and tie) as The Joker from "Batman" smiles at the camera.

A man in full makeup (green hair, white face makeup) and dress (purple jacket, green vest and tie) as The Joker from "Batman" smiles at the camera.

The latest installment in "The Month in Photos" at Van-ishing America features Kindle the #cat, #witches, #zombies and the #Halloween residents of #EurekaSprings, #Arkansas (along with a sidetrip to #Montana to pick up our household goods). See the pics here: davidabrams.substack.com/p/the-month-...

5 months ago 6 0 0 0
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I think being a teenager is about hiding all your quirks and contorting yourself to fit in and impress people, and being an adult is about re-finding who you were when you were eight years old.
#SundaySentence
We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin

5 months ago 157 12 7 0

This is, in a nutshell, the whole raison d’etre of #SundaySentence

5 months ago 16 1 2 0
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#SundaySentence

"The heart of a hurt child can shrink so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach."

- Carson McCullers, 1951

5 months ago 27 1 1 1
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By early Sunday morning, the City, so far from settling itself for a deeper sleep, lies silently expectant, awaiting the visitation of a ghostly army, summoned by bells to worship old gods in their carefully preserved shrines and to walk down quiet, remembered streets.

P D James
#SundaySentence

5 months ago 31 3 2 0
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elmo from sesame street is standing in front of a fire and saying everything is fine . ALT: elmo from sesame street is standing in front of a fire and saying everything is fine .

“We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.” Tennessee Williams
#SundaySentence

5 months ago 18 3 0 0
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on the river Visit the post for more.

theresakishkan.com/2025/10/22/r...

a #SundaySentence from Theresa Kishkan's redux: morning (parenthesis) ...

This morning, at the beginning of my swim, a little silver trout jumped out of the water just beyond where I was heading, the curve of its body an opening parenthesis to my thinking.

5 months ago 12 1 0 0
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a black and white photo of a man in a tuxedo sitting in a crowd . Alt: a black and white GIF clip of Buster Keaton in a tuxedo sitting in a crowd looking at something off camera.

It’s Sunday: Do you know where your sentence is?

Each week, #readers share the very best sentence(s) they read in the past week. Share your favorite at #SundaySentence

5 months ago 7 1 1 1
The cover of “Bloomland” by John Englehardt, winner of the Dzanc Prize for Fiction

The cover of “Bloomland” by John Englehardt, winner of the Dzanc Prize for Fiction

My #SundaySentence is from the remarkable, unforgettable BLOOMLAND by John Englehardt:

Other than telling her your name is Eddie, you won't remember what exactly you say. But you will remember how unique this moment feels, like two swimmers from separate shores meeting in the open water.

5 months ago 12 0 0 0
Natalie Goldberg’s timeless instruction book, Writing Down the Bones

Natalie Goldberg’s timeless instruction book, Writing Down the Bones

Struggling with creativity and focus, I come back to Natalie Goldberg’s foundation for my #SundaySentence :
“If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.” #Booksky ✍🏼📚

6 months ago 54 6 7 0
[Image Description: a graphic featuring a photo of calamari à l'armoricaine and the words Uncle also claims to be the custodian of the time-honored recipe for calamari à l'armoricaine, a recipe that consists of frozen squid rings vaguely cooked in half a gallon of cheap red wine seasoned only with a pinch of pepper, a dish, I should add, reserved for special occasions, for honored guests, for first-time visitors, because Uncle likes to give all newcomers a lavish welcome, at least those who are too polite to refuse what they're so beamingly being offered, and when we suggest to Uncle that he add some garlic, and go a little lighter on the red wine, and have a look at the sell-by date on the squid, and also take a shower, just a little more often, a real shower, not just a swipe with a wet washcloth, no, a real cleaning from top to bottom, Uncle says simply no, he doesn't want to, he's sticking to his father's recipe.]

[Image Description: a graphic featuring a photo of calamari à l'armoricaine and the words Uncle also claims to be the custodian of the time-honored recipe for calamari à l'armoricaine, a recipe that consists of frozen squid rings vaguely cooked in half a gallon of cheap red wine seasoned only with a pinch of pepper, a dish, I should add, reserved for special occasions, for honored guests, for first-time visitors, because Uncle likes to give all newcomers a lavish welcome, at least those who are too polite to refuse what they're so beamingly being offered, and when we suggest to Uncle that he add some garlic, and go a little lighter on the red wine, and have a look at the sell-by date on the squid, and also take a shower, just a little more often, a real shower, not just a swipe with a wet washcloth, no, a real cleaning from top to bottom, Uncle says simply no, he doesn't want to, he's sticking to his father's recipe.]

#SundaySentence from About Uncle by Rebecca Gisler, Jordan Stump (Translator)

6 months ago 7 1 0 0

That cover!!

6 months ago 0 0 0 0

“And if it’s around October twentieth and everything smoky-smelling and the sky orange and ash gray at twilight, it seems Halloween will never come in a fall of broomsticks and a soft flap of bedsheets around corners.”

A #SundaySentence by Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

6 months ago 24 5 2 0
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“The continuous cycle of pronominal expansion and contraction is the heart of writing for me, it is the time of writing, the filling and emptying of the chambers of the art.”

—— Ben Lerner, Cardiography
#SundaySentence

6 months ago 18 2 0 0

#sundaysentence

"I kissed your birthmarks
little islands on your skin;
new, discovered lands."

- Caroline Kaufman, Light Filters In

6 months ago 21 3 2 0

Here's a #SundaySentence (or two) from These Truths
by Jill Lepore

6 months ago 11 1 1 0
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“Whenever he walked up the creaking mast of stairs to their seagull’s nest apartment, he was surprised anew by Ulla’s elfin beauty, by the pine floors, by the white Ikea couch, by the Western lightness and comfort that was, apparently, his.
—Kiran Desai #SundaySentence

6 months ago 12 1 1 0