William Griffin – författare

Literature about the wise men from the east is wide and varied. The first three, bearing gold, frankincense, and myrrh, arrived a few years late. A fourth, after a trek of thirty-three years, arrived just moments before Jesus died on the cross. The fifth, the subject of this novel, arrived early, just moments after Mary of Nazareth conceived. At that time the world was thought to be at peace, and well it may have been, but it was a total and absolute mess. It is through this mess, and with clouds as uncertain guides, that Dill of the Nile slogged, from Babylon to Nazareth, in hope of finding a celebrity birth. Instead he found himself bewildered and exhausted and was about to turn back when he heard a scream and saw a young woman running toward him....The novel is about the trip in 50 chapters, a perilous passage during which Dill finds himself in desperate situations with disparate characters. Along the way there is much satire about things old and new; a history of comedy, mainly Jewish; a conversion from many gods to one God; a critique of atheism and atheists; a love story between Dill and his wife, lasting ten years after her murderous death; a region occupied by the Roman Empire and ruled by a client king; rare moments of reverence and piety; a jaunty text in several languages. In the end the novel has everything but elephants, and that would include two unusual camels.DILL OF THE NILE is a modern novel about ancient events that seem to have occurred last week, last month, last year. Its meant to entertain, even though it makes a point or two along the way. Caution. This is not a childrens book; its for adults only.

Young Ethelbert, King of Kent, goes to Paris to collect a substantial debt. Old Charibert, King of the Franks, greets him, stalls him a hundred times, then promises his daughters weight in gold. On second thought he gives her away instead. Bertha is large, but shes beauteous, bounteous, bumptious. Ethelbert is small, but hes a fierce warrior who bows to no one. But she nearly kills him by opening a door just as he was about to knock on it. She tends to his splattered nose and his wounded pride. He likes her jolly jokes, but she grows sad, thinking that Bert, like all the other young men shes met, will run away from a big fat blob like herself. She wont be sad ever again, promises Bert, not while hes alive. Having met their match, then, they decide to make a match, even though her parents and the bishop dont think its a good match. Ethelbert, you see, is a pagan, and Bertha, a Christian. A beautiful marriage and a wild wedding reception take place, complete with pop-up cake, dwarf-tossing, competitive dancing, and truly horrid foods that only a young reader can like. By the way, its A.D. 562 for anyone who wants to know.

A truly livable and decidedly witty lay spirituality from the most amusing Christian intellectual of our time. From his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, and children's classics, The Chronicles of Narnia; from his poems and novels; from his literary criticism and theological explorations C. S. Lewis has laid down, albeit unwittingly, a spirituality that the "e;mere Christian"e;--something of an invention of Lewis's--can live with from Monday through Saturday. On Sunday Lewis would expect the mere Christian to be in his or her own church. In this book, Bill Griffin, renowned Lewis scholar and biographer, captures the spirituality from Lewis's own writings and presents it in a manner reminiscent of Lewis's own.

William Griffin, the author of this enormously witty epistolary novel, takes his cue from C. S. Lewis. Like Lewis's beloved Screwtape Letters, the letters of a master tempter to his protege, this novel contains a packet of letters from one devil to another. The correspondent is an accomplished young demon named Fleetwood. He's taking a break from his high-powered position in the American mass-temptation industry to answer his uncle's challenge to successfully tempt just one individual, a young woman who's recently moved to Manhattan. Though Fleetwood's elderly uncle is only an ember of his former self, he can still make his nephew burn, and Fleetwood outdoes himself trying to show up the older devil. The demonic minion tries every technique at his disposal--from whispering philosophical arguments in her ear to tapping her phone to tipping hot food into her mail friend's lap--to win the soul of the beautiful woman. And as if that isn't enough for an upwardly mobile young demon, Fleetwood also has to content with a bevy of belligerent of angelic bouncers. Will Fleetwood win, or might the road to Heaven be paved with diabolic intentions? Find out in this hilarious yet thoughtful satire in which the arena where souls are lost (or won) is modern-day America.

What happens when a rapidly expanding energy monopoly violently prioritizes extraction speed over basic human survival? The catastrophic consequences of this corporate greed culminated in the Monongah mining disaster of 1907, which remains the deadliest industrial accident in American history. Deep in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia, the Fairmont Coal Company operated massive, highly mechanized mines. In a desperate bid to maximize daily tonnage, management deliberately ignored severe methane gas build-ups and highly explosive coal dust accumulating in the poorly ventilated shafts. On a freezing December morning, an errant spark ignited the toxic atmosphere. The resulting subterranean blast was so powerful it destroyed the massive concrete ventilation fans on the surface, instantly entombing and killing an estimated five hundred miners. This forensic industrial analysis dissects the lethal mechanics of corporate deregulation. It documents the horrific rescue attempts, the company's aggressive legal evasion of financial compensation for the widows, and the furious public backlash that eventually birthed the United States Bureau of Mines. Step into the dark heart of the American energy boom. The Monongah tragedy is a chilling case study on the absolute devastation caused by unchecked industrial monopolies.