MSI Press Blog

  What is a book jewel? A sometimes-overlooked book with remarkable insight and potential significance. Each month, we share near-daily, or as often as possible, reviews of the monthly book jewel - short, succinct reviews that can be read in 1-2 minutes with links to the reviewer by reviewers whose words are worthy of being heard and whose opinions are worthy of being considered. Sometimes a couple of minutes contains more impressive thought than ten times that many. We will let you decide that. This month's book jewel is  Road to Damascus  by Elaine Imady. Description: Recommended by US Review of Books and First Runner-Up in the Eric Hoffer Awards legacy competition, Road to Damascus describes the Middle Eastern journey of an American who meets and falls in love with a Syrian when they are both attending school in New York. Giving up her country and her religion to follow her husband back to Syria, Elaine Imady has made a life that has successfully bridged two cultures and two con

                    One of the fun things that a publisher (or at least, an acquisitions editor) gets to experience is meeting more than one member of a family -- as authors whose work we publish, In this series of presenting family authors, we take note of the Imady writers, who have written several exciting and award-winning books. Above pictured, left to right, is Elaine Imady, the mother of Muna (daughter) and Omar (son). Elaine's book, Road to Damascus , a memoir of her physical and emotional journey from New York to Syria with her husband, Mohammed, was the first runner-up in the Eric Hoffer Legacy Award competition. Muna, who published two books with MSI Press -- the popular Syrian Folktales and the gut-wrenching Damascus amid the War , passed away suddenly and unexpectedly just as she finished the latter book; may she rest in peace. Omar's MSI Press books are quite different one from another: The Rise and Fall of Muslim Civil Society and When You're Shoved from th

  The following excerpt comes from Road to Damascus by Elaine Imady. My father was always the outsider in our family, the one with the funny Missourian accent, who said “Miz”, “naught”, “bucket” and “skillet” instead of “Mrs.”, “zero”, “pail” and “frying pan,” who spoke slowly and who moved deliberately. We–Mother and we three sisters–were the fast-moving, fast-talking, mercurial Easterners who got impatient with Dad’s phlegmatic, Midwestern ways. Dad only had his mother, our Grandma Rippey, but Mother, who had been a Post, had aunts, uncles, first and second cousins galore. In Palisades, everywhere you turned, there were Posts, relatives all. Actually, Dad’s relatives probably outnumbered Mom’s, but they were far away in Missouri and we only saw them once when they came east. So, as I said, Dad was an outsider. He was also a drinker. At the end of our days with him, drink was more important to him than anything else in the world. He swallowed it down, and it swallowed him up. I’m not

  MSI Press authors are located all over the world. Getting to know the authors can also mean getting to know a new part of the world. We will be sharing this information on a regular basis. Follow us and map our authors' locations. Elaine Imady, author of Road to Damascus , is in Syria. Here is some information about Damascus.  C Damascus has a wealth of historical sites dating back to many different periods of the city's history. Since the city has been built up with every passing occupation, it has become almost impossible to excavate all the ruins of Damascus that lie up to 2.4 m (8 ft) below the modern level. [ citation needed ]   The   Citadel of Damascus   is in the northwest corner of the Old City. The   Damascus Straight Street   (referred to in the account of the   conversion   of   St. Paul   in   Acts   9:11), also known as the   Via Recta , was the   decumanus   (east–west main street) of Roman Damascus, and extended for over 1,500 m (4,900 ft). Today, it consists

  From the chapter, "Ramadan," in  Road to Damascus  -  My first weeks in Damascus, I found any and every excuse to sit on the balcony adjoining our bedroom, writing letters, reading, watching the street action below or, best of all, just looking at the city. I knew this sight was one thing I would miss when we moved downstairs because there, the house across the street blocked most of the view. The balconies on our building were enclosed by a stone wall about three feet high and were, in typical fashion, surmounted by another foot or more of wrought iron, artfully twisted and bent into arabesque patterns. Some balconies were generously built and could seat a large family and visiting friends. However, even smaller balconies, like ours, were crowded with potted flowers - geraniums, rose bushes, jasmine, climbing vines and one or two caged songbirds Balcony floors were tiled and had a drain at one end. Mornings I would find Kawsar and other industrious housewives sluicing them

  Maktoub  Arabs say that from the day of your birth the name of your beloved is invisibly engraved on your forehead. Perhaps this is true and explains the mysterious flicker of recognition I felt the day we met.  December 15, 1955 was a cold, overcast Thursday, and snowflakes were swirling down from dark skies, blown by gusts of biting, cold wind. I took the earliest bus into the city, and, as I hurried up the steps of the Main Building of New York University, I glanced at my watch. Eight o’clock. Good, I thought, three hours to review for my Russian exam at eleven. I had to do well because the possibility of a full scholarship hung on my grades this semester.  Looking back, I know it was actually fate that propelled me out of bed before dawn that day. Fate, destiny–the Arabs have a better word for it. They would say our meeting was maktoub or “written”. Omar Khayyam put it nicely: “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,/ Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit/ Shall lure it back to

As we get ready to submit some of our great authors' works to the Eric Hoffer Book Award competition, we remember and celebrate those who have won in the past. Road to Damascus by Elaine Imady was the first runner-up in the legacy category last year. The Marriage Whisperer by Patt Pickett received an honorable mention. Both books, while quite different from each other, are very special, very good, and well worth the time invested in reading them.

We like to think that MSI Press is a family, but sometimes, we have families among our authors. One such family is the Imady family from Damascus, Syria. Elaine Imady, the mother, met her sweetheart in New York and moved with him to his home country of Syria, where she raised three bicultural children. Her love story is told in Road to Damascus . Read more about Elaine and her book HERE .     Muna Imady, the daughter, wrote a beloved and popular book,  Syrian Folktales . Not long after, she died following heart surgery, leaving a mostly finished, unpublished book, Damascus amid the War, due out in August 2020. Elaine and daughter #32, Sausan, put the finishing touches on the book, including a touching memorial to Muna that had been published in the  New York Times . Read more about Muna, her life, and her books  HERE . Dr. Omar Imady, the son, is a professor of political science who has written a number of fiction and non-fiction books about Syria, Middle Ea