Greetings From The Graveyard

"The unsuspecting trio at Spence Mansion starts a greeting card company--and winds up on the adventure of a lifetime!"--

Winner of the Faulkner Society Award for Best Novel In a small seaside city on the Jersey Shore, three half-siblings confront the death of a distant and bullying patriarch. They now have the chance to imagine new relationships and new futures, ones that would have been near-unthinkable while their father was alive. Caught in their crossfire are the conservative religious communities that border Asbury Park, the longtime locals who have been pushed to the fringe by the shore’s revitalization, and the legendary town upon which the whole world seems to converge. Slowly, however, they come to understand that everything—their future, their happiness—depends on whether they can face themselves. Wise, perceptive, and provocative, Greetings from Asbury Park is a remarkable literary debut in the tradition of great American novels such as Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. It is a deep interrogation of place that depicts flawed characters as they break through to adulthood, truth, and to a moral relationship with the world.

Children's book author I. B. Grumply gets more than he bargained for when he rents a quiet place to write for the summer, in this story told mostly through letters.

"Islam's Bloody Borders" (Chapter 10 , The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel P. Huntington) is what provoked noted Pakistani poet, writer and literary activist Feza Aazmi to write From The Graveyard of Civilizations giving an equally acerbic and angry rejoinder "Christianity's Bloody Borders" to Huntington. Feza Aazmi's book is an attempt to prove that most wars in the past history were essentially wars of aggrandizement .These were waged for hegemony and for control of resources. The future wars are not going to be any different. In Aazmi's view Prof Huntington's book is a gross misinterpretation of facts of history and present day ground realities. Aazmi detects a distinct intent in the book to malign Islamic faith and history in order to provide an excuse to launch actions against Muslim nations, and to develop a new pattern of hegemony over them. Refuting the basic elements contained in the theory of Clash of Civilizations Aazmi offers a viable alternative of a global society living in peace and security - "this is the paradise, promised on earth, for every living soul", concludes Aazmi. All this is expressed in the format of a book-length verse which is unique in many ways.

In this story told mostly through letters, children's book author, I.B. Grumply, gets more than he bargained for when he rents a quiet place to write for the summer.

Someone is blackmailing a local supermarket chain. And getting away with it, thanks to a very clever payoff method involving hole-in-the-wall bank machines and a bit of glaring police incompetence. When the blackmailers descend on Eddathorpe, Robert Graham is called in. He thinks it's an inside job - and sets out to prove it. He doesn't know the case is going to escalate from fraud to murder; or that its unravelling could change his life...

In a typical English country lane, ten households form a peaceful, if mundane little community. It seems like the perfect environment for newleyweds Ian and Migs Peters to settle down and raise their son. Surely a small dispute over the resurfacing and widening of their lane connot cause too much discomfort in this idyllic setting? But there are tensions and personal ambitions brewing beneath the surface, and histroy also has its place in such a firmly established community. Change comes at a price, particlarly for certain memebers of Millers Lane.

This study of a little known ninth-century legal scholar has important implications for the history of Islamic law and for early Arabic writing in general. The chapters on slave law break new ground and offer concrete examples for tracing the development of early Islamic jurisprudence.