David Abrams

Two grey cats hug each other

September's installment of The Month in Photos is very Eureka Springs-centric. Pics include the Jeep parade, the Run Unicorn Run, and Hillbilly Jim taking a bath. Oh, and #cats, of course.

See the photos at Van-ishing America: davidabrams.substack.com/p/the-month-...

A replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Texas, is seen illuminated at night. On top of the tower is a giant, cherry-red cowboy hat.

"Unlike its French namesake, Paris, Texas, should probably be called the City of Darkness."

New post up at Van-ishing America: davidabrams.substack.com/p/one-night-...

This was a hard one to write, and a hard one to read, but once I learned the facts about Paris' history, I couldn't look away.

And that’s an absolutely marvelous cover! Thanks for sharing.

From a substack post dated 03OCT2025 written by Mathilda Ferguson, entitled "The Silent Dialogue: How Literature Cultivates the Landscape of the Heart" this hopeful #SundaySentence:

"The cultivation of a single reader's heart, when multiplied, tills the earth for a more compassionate society."

I’ve been hearing so many good things about this novel—another resident of my ever-growing TBR pile now, thanks to readers like you!

Speaking of hope....

The cover image shows a lonely rural road with an old building in the distance. The words "A Lynley novel" appear in-between the author name and title.

Barbara frowned, looking up at the ceiling, where there was nothing to see save a row of fluorescent lights, of the type that made everyone look like they'd just been released from hospital while still profoundly ill. - Elizabeth George, A Slowly Dying Cause (Lynley series) #SundaySentence #Booksky

We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped.

Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
#sundaysentence #booksky

Back to Graham Greene again for my #sundaysentence this week: "Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation."

[Image Description: a graphic featuring a photo of an elderly man sitting on the edge of bed and the words ‘Whoops-a-daisy,' he said, smiling again to show he was all right, and stuck one of his dreadful old feet with its Walt Disney ogre's toenails almost into her face as she knelt recovering his travelling clock, his pills, his spilled water-carafe, his spectacles, his address book that he kept up to date by crossing off his friends as they died, his saucer that he'd used for grape pips, a couple of chessmen he'd been mending and a plastic heart-shaped box in which he kept alternate rows of false teeth at night.]

#SundaySentence from 'Child's Play' in the short story collection Mr Wrong by Elizabeth Jane Howard

#ElizabethJaneHoward

“The world will always bring you back into perspective, if you only bother to let it.”

From Buckeye by Patrick Ryan

This #SundaySentence could not wait for Sunday.

A paperback copy of HOPE IN THE DARK by Rebecca Solnit, with sunlight beaming across the black and white cover.

#Readers, what's the best sentence you read this week? Share at #SundaySentence!

Mine was an easy pick--but also hard since there were so many to choose from in HOPE IN THE DARK by @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social:

We write history with our feet and with our presence and our collective voice and vision.

I can’t believe I’m watching interviews of city mayors talking about how they are coordinating with other mayors to discuss how to protect their residents FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

I know we are “used to it” but it is absolutely insane

Fell in love with Jose Saramago all over again while rereading Cain, his skeptic take on the old testament:
"God should be as clear and transparent as a pane of glass and not go wasting his energies on creating an atmosphere of constant terror and fear."
#SundaySentence

#SundaySentence

Rereading an old favorite...

"There came to him, stirred by the warmth of the fire and the gentle aroma of tea, a thousand tangled recollections of old times."

- James Hilton, 1934

She put her head back and looked up at the sky; the clouds were gigantic, glazed on their underbellies with radiant pink, like clouds in a painting of a Bible story. (271)

Donna Tartt / The Little Friend
#SundaySentence

“Peppered with the scrapes and bruises, dents and half-healed wounds of what has clearly been a hard fighting life, the oak has the face of an aging football hooligan.”

- A #SundaySentence by Callum Robinson, “Ingrained: The Making of a Craftsman”

Further proof of why ONE OF US by @danchaon.bsky.social is at the top of my must-read this season.

The cover of THE PLACE OF TIDES by James Rebanks shows a photograph of the setting: the islands of Norway’s arctic coast near Vega.

“The buds on the peony were filling now, like tight green scoops of ice cream with a hint of raspberry peeking through.”—THE PLACE OF TIDES, by James Rebanks

#SundaySentence

If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of the warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima: J. Robert Oppenheimer @vermontgmg.bsky.social #SundaySentence

For what else is a marriage, really, if not being stuck on a small raft with someone and trying to survive! from #AMarriageatSea by #SophieElmhirst
#sundaysentence
@riverheadbooks.bsky.social

Let me be perfectly clear: this is an amusing and witty take on a very serious situation in Portland--a manufactured problem which was spun like cotton candy from the low-oxygen brain of our president. My heart goes out to my Portland friends.

Speaking of #SundaySentence, nearly every one of the sentences in this brilliant piece by @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social is worthy of the hashtag. Read it and weep through the laughter.

The cover image of "We the People: a History of the U.S. Constitution" by JIll Lepore is shown on the screen of a Kobo e-reader.

The U.S. Constitution, made from the hides of fleeced sheep, the feathers of molting geese, and sunbeams and shafts of light, is not perfect and never was perfect and never will be perfect.
~Jill Lepore, "We the People"

That's my #SundaySentence for the week. What's YOUR favorite sentence you read?

Dan was a light in this world extinguished all too soon. His loss is felt by so many writers whose lives—like mine—he touched in so many ways. Even though we never met in person, I feel like I’ve lost one of the dearest friends I’ve ever had.

#SundaySentence is from “Hidden History of Eureka Springs” by Joyce Zeller

Most towns begin for a reason—a crossroads or a trading post—but this curious hamlet owes its existence to a small puddle of water at the bottom of a hill and the rare chance that the right people happened by at the right time to make a difference.
2/2

#EurekaSprings #Arkansas

Bright green moss covers a limestone wall at one of Eureka Springs, Arkansas’ many natural springs.

My #SundaySentence is all about my new town:

Eureka Springs, Arkansas, is an accidental town that owes its existence to a chance encounter in the woods.
1/2

"I think if enough bad things pile up, they inevitably cross over into comedy."

Katie Yee
Maggie Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar

#SundaySentence