Not everyone in real estate or construction is Washington-smooth like Sy Solomon. Thanks to my friend Court Merrigan for this link to an excerpt from the Glengarry GlenRoss movie, adapted from the David Mamet play. Both show, in Court’s words, ”the cold seething black heart of capitalism.” Management doesn’t want you sipping coffee if […]
Read MoreAh, yes! To the Flemish Cap, Speaker Boehner!
Film as perfect budget-crisis metaphor? As generic rhetoric, some in Washington may talk of a “perfect storm” of chaos in the American and global financial markets if Republicans and Democrats don’t raise the debt ceiling by August 2. I myself, however, am thinking precisely of the book and movie title based on the meteorological term—yes, […]
Read MoreHow to ‘Scandalize’ your book group—either the online or in-person kind
The Solomon Scandals is fiction—a mix of suspense, tragedy and satire—but more than a little history lurks within in it. A high-rise collapsed in Northern Virginia, and a Senator really did hold a secret and illegal investment in a CIA-occupied building a few miles away. Characters and events are composites or imaginary. But Scandals still […]
Read MoreTony, please stay in Congress—you’re good for ‘Scandals’ sales
Like almost all other novels by unknowns, The Solomon Scandals has faced its challenges, but now my book has a powerful, newsworthy friend in Tony Weiner. His misdoings have been catnip for my Kindle rankings. They’re hardly stellar, but have risen to as high as the first 10,000 or 11,000 on occasion this week—not bad […]
Read MoreOverview of ‘The Solomon Scandals’ novel
Ever wonder why our politicians, business leaders, and media figures so often disappoint us, and what happens after the scandals? The Solomon Scandals is not only about the original chicanery and related crimes but also their ripples—right up to the late 21st century. It mixes suspense, tragedy, and satire in an edgy look at Washington […]
Read MoreWriter’s tiny N.Y.C. apartment: Comfy or scary? I say it’s a mix. Time for Felice Cohen to try e-books as a space-saver?
Felice Cohen is happy here. I’m not sure if I’d be, although I envy her ability as an organizer and wish her luck with her new book on her grandfather who survived the Holocaust. Actually, in The Solomon Scandals, a maverick bureaucrat lives in a space smaller than Ms. Cohen’s. Meanwhile, might Ms. Cohen want […]
Read MorePressJack gives ‘Solomon Scandals’ blog a Flipboard magazine-style look in your browser: No iPad needed
Check out the resultant experience for yourself. More info on PressJack is here and here, and, yes, it will also transform other RSS feeds—for reading or publication. One more way to show off sample book chapters? But wait! So far I can’t get the “experience” link to work with my iPad, apparently for Flash-related reasons. (Thanks […]
Read MoreQuarter Pentagon’s bomb vulnerabilities accidentally revealed: Idiots! Almost as bad as bungles in ‘The Solomon Scandals.’ Any ideas for BRAC-133, Mr. Trump?
Update: Jim Moran has since told me there was no quid pro quo, that the real estate developer's contributions were part of an arrangement by which he contributed to many races at once. I appreciated his responding and will let readers judge for themserves. I’ve already told how the $1B Quarter Pentagon, aka BRAC-133, part […]
Read MoreHigh-profile $1B Quarter Pentagon is potential terrorist-bait and one of many reasons why Washington might screw over the young, the old, and the sick
Update: Jim Moran has since told me there was no quid pro quo, that the Indiana real estate developer's contributions were part of an arrangement by which the developer contributed to many people at once, apparently with an unrelated issue in mind. I appreciated the Moran response and will let readers judge for themselves. […]
Read MoreTorn between two e-books? Go for the one without Digital Rights Management, if forced to choose. DRM is the ‘Scandal’ of e-publishing.
In character, one of Rob Pegoraro’s last “Faster Forward” columns for the Washington Post is on Digital Rights Management, aka “copy protection,” the scourge of e-book lovers for many reasons. DRMed books in the ePub format for iBooks—the Apple-created reading app for the iPad and related gizmos—are not readable on the Nook or on Sony […]
Read MoreAided by Kindle Review rec and 99-cent sale, ‘Solomon Scandals’ zoomed to 1K rank at Amazon out of 850K
For years, as founder and editor of TeleRead, I complained of e-book gouges by big publishers eager to protect their trade in paper books. My little publisher, Twilight Times Books, owned by the author-friendly Lida Quillen, listened. Last week with my blessing, Lida dropped the price of The Solomon Scandals on Amazon to 99 cents, […]
Read More99-cent ‘Solomon Scandals’ Kindle sale: Just through March 28
Update: The sale is still on through early April—Scandals’s rank went from the hundreds of thousands to 1K. I paid $1.50 a few weeks ago to take a WiFi-equipped bus down from Boston to Washington, D.C. On the way to the bus station, the taxi driver—from Nigeria, of all places—told me the fare was a […]
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