JOURNALS - SPECIAL ISSUE _Arizona Quarterly: Special Issue - Mark Twain at the Turn-of-the-Century, 1890-1910_, Volume 61, Number 1, Spring 2005. Softcover, 199 pages. Edited by Shelley Fisher Fishkin and Forrest G. Robinson. $10. This special issue of eight conference papers derives from the Stanford and University of California at Santa Cruz conference held in May 2004. The contents of this special issue are: "In Twain's Times" by Susan Gillman; "The General and the Maid: Mark Twain on Ulysses S. Grant and Joan of Arc" by Forrest G. Robinson; "Mark Twain, Manhood, The Henry H. Rogers Friendship, and 'Which Was the Dream?'" by Peter Messent; "In the Mirror of the Imagination: Mark Twain's Kipling" by Gregg Camfield; "Mark Twain's Critique of Globalization (Old and New) in _Following the Equator, A Journey Around the World_ (1897)" by John Carlos Rowe; "Mark Twain and the Jews" by Shelley Fisher Fishkin; "Better Dreams: Political Satire and Twain's Final 'Exploding' Novel" by Hilton Obenzinger; and "Mark Twain, Pretexts, Iconoclasm" by David Lionel Smith. Single issues are available for $10 from: Arizona Quarterly 1731 E. Second Street PO Box 210014 University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721-0014 ~~~~~ BOOKS - FICTION _Canaan's Tongue_. By John Wray. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Hardcover, 341 pages. $25.00. ISBN: 1-4000-4086-8. Wray's novel, set in 1863, is rooted in the criminal underworld of the infamous slave trader John Murrell. Twain discussed "Murel's Gang" in chapter 29 of _Life on the Mississippi_ and Wray uses passages from Twain's novel to introduce two chapters in _Canaan's Tongue_. One chapter titled "Samuel Clemens" is a (fictitious) letter written by Clemens to a girl named "Sweet Leah." Clemens's letter describes meeting "the notorious slave bandit Thaddeus Murel" aboard a steamboat piloted by Horace Bixby. Amazon link for this book is: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400040868/twainwebmarktwaiA/ Barbara Schmidt Book Review Editor