Just 63 percent of U.S. high school graduates enrolled directly in college in 2020—a decline from 70 percent just four years earlier. What’s going on? Covid? And maybe more temptation to go directly to the shop or assembly line, given a booming job market? Well, it’s a little more complicated than just Covid, and besides, […]
Stone statues honoring the dead helped draw me to the University of North Carolina. Thomas Wolfe wrote unforgettably of his father the stonecutter in Look Homeward, Angel, a classic coming-of-age novel. After reading Angel, I knew I must go to Chapel Hill. Back in the 1960s when I was at “Pulpit Hill, as Wolfe called the university in […]
Never mind fiscal cliffs, or the fact that the real danger isn’t a Mayan-style apocalypse but a nuclear one (with the Doomsday clock last set at five minutes to midnight). For more than a few of us, the big threat is the year ahead, 2013. Perhaps 85 percent of the world’s office buildings lack marked […]
You can order a trade paperback of the The Solomon Scandals through re.reads BOOKS south of Alexandria, Virginia, Bridge Street Books in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. or your own neighborhood bookstore, or buy it via the publisher, Twilight Times Books. The novel is also available online in digital editions. List price of the 252-page paperback is $16.95 […]
"Jeffrey wasn’t sure why no one would hang around with him anymore. Maybe it was his new deodorant?" – Animals being dicks, via Court Merrigan. Here’s the full story—G-rated—via an animation. Oh, and please ignore the meaningless “Similar Posts” links below unless they’re of interest to you in your “random” mode. My cyber-elves must be […]
“He would fit in well here.” – Chronicle of Higher Education commenter quoting a CNN report on just-captured mobster Whitey Bulger: “An ‘avid reader with an interest in history,’ Bulger was known to frequent libraries and historic sites, the FBI said. “ Whitey’s brother, William, aka “Billy,” spent years as a university president, not just […]
Almost to the day, 66 years ago, on April 28, 1045, Mussolini’s enemies shot him and kicked and spat on his body, and on April 30 of that same year, Hitler killed himself with a Walther PPK 7.65 mm pistol (right photo). Now it is 2011 and we’ve TWEPed and buried Osama bin Laden. A […]
I date back to the Smith Corona days of newspapers, and I can fondly recall a group named something like the Anti All Digital Dialing League. I’ll not bow blindly to the gods of technology. Within the book industry, I’m rooting for the survival of paper books and especially of the small independent stores selling […]
Rebecca Kitiona-Fenton: Great-grandniece of Jonathan Stone, the narrator. Tireless student of “previrtual media,” the inky old paper kind. Jon Stone, the narrator: A reporter whose curiosity might kill his career and maybe him. Sees Washington as a white-collar factory town. Covered the Kent State massacre while working in a blue-collar town. A Jew raised in […]
Enjoying the gritty depictions of Washington power players in the fabulous House of Cards series on Netflix? Then you might also check out The Solomon Scandals, which predates the Netflix program. Like so much of House, as well as the classic novel All the King’s Men, Scandals is about the conflict between friendship and duty. […]
A free MP3 of the start of The Solomon Scandals—one hour of a total of about eight—is now downloadable for iPods or other players. Click here to get the audio file, which includes an introduction. Big thanks to librarian Tom Peters, the narrator, who is with Online Programming for All Libraries. If you’re blind or […]
Rebecca Kitiona-Fenton: Great-grandniece of Jonathan Stone, the narrator. Tireless student of “previrtual media,” the inky old paper kind. Jon Stone, the narrator: A reporter whose curiosity might kill his career and maybe him. Sees Washington as a white-collar factory town. Covered the Kent State massacre while working in a blue-collar town. A Jew raised in […]
“Tracing the conscientious reportage of hard-nosed Washington Telegram correspondent Jon Stone, Rothman’s thriller weaves together society gossip, zoning reportage, and union grumblings into a pulp-ish web of international intrigue. Stone is the Cassandra of the D.C. press corps—his hunches mocked, his scoops unpublished until it’s too late. In the meantime, we get to relish his […]
The Solomon Scandals vividly depicts a city of lobbyists, crooked lawyers and other manipulators. Herbert Stone, father of Jonathan Stone, the reporter protagonist, works for a provider of PR and “public affairs” services. It’s “a nice, safe pseudo-Civil Service, so to speak, for careerists keen on abetting the more obnoxious of the corporate profiteers.” But […]
David Rothman is reachable at davidrothman@pobox.com or 703-370-6540. He is available for signings and other activities. For media outside the United States, he can be interviewed via Skype when arrangements are made in advance. Twilight Times Books is at publisher@twilighttimesbooks.com. TTB, a small press in Kingsport, Tennessee, distributes both directly and via Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Brodart […]
Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat, the whistleblower in the FBI who blew open much of the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post, is dead. Leonard Downie, a Post staffer at the time, writes how much investigative reporting has changed since then—for example, technologically. Imagine staying in touch with a source who totes a prepaid cell […]
Here’s some inspiration for me or other writers aiming for radio exposure. I can’t recall where I ran across it—a Twitter tweet?—but I’ve discovered a treasure trove of author audios at the BBC site. A 1937 recording of George Bernard Shaw is among them.
DAVID ROTHMAN’S NO-FRILLS HOME PAGE TeleRead Home Page | Arthur C. Clarke Chapter from The Silicon Jungle Harry Rothman Eulogy Thanks for dropping by my No-Frills Home Page. Alas, many of the links are out of date since this page goes back to the 1990s and I haven’t heard time to update it. My latest book is The […]
A friend and I had just seen a movie with a soft-spoken and obscenity-free editor, a balding Boy Scout of the city room. Now she wondered if my novel hadn’t sinned in making such a wild character out of George McWilliams, editor at the fictitious Washington Telegram. Her message couldn’t have been clearer. Ben Bradlee, […]
A New York Times contributor offered the best take on blurbs. Maybe we should call in the Bureau of Consumer Protection. He was talking about “misblurbing” of existing book reviews, but original blurbs come with their own perils. Just the same, as others have noted before, positives exist. Honest blurbs can be a useful form […]
Phone: 423-323-0183 Email: publisher@twilighttimesbooks.com Publisher: Lida Quillen Web site: Here.
David Rothman grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, on the outer fringes of the D.C. elite—a future Watergater lived almost next door. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he worked as a reporter for the Journal in Lorain, Ohio, where he covered poverty and public housing and was a feature writer. […]
