The Rienner Anthology of African Literature
Edited by Anthonia C. Kalu. Lynne Rienner, Publishers Boulder, London 2007. pp. i-xiii,1-976 $125. ISBN: 9781588264916

Reviewed by Saul Steier, San Francisco State University.

You know a field has “arrived” when its rich content is such that it is no longer possible to represent it adequately with random selected individual works. The publishing sign of that moment of arrival is the “Anthology.”

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Revolutionary Spirits: The Enlightened Faith of America’s Revolutionary Fathers by Gary Kowalski. BlueBridge, 2008. 215 pages. $22.00. ISBN: 1 933346094

Reviewed by Harriet Rafter, San Francisco State University.

What were the religious beliefs of the men we consider this country’s Founding Fathers: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Paine, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison? Did they intend the country they helped to create to be Christian? Were they observant Christians themselves? Would their religious beliefs and practices pass muster with those self-styled “values voters” whom American politicians now feel and fear they must court? These are the questions that Gary Kowalski asks in this short and informative book. Formerly this topic would have been an academic exercise, of scholarly interest only. Now that we are reminded daily of the enormous role that religion plays in world politics and events, the faith of these men assumes weightier importance.

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Reasonable Doubts, by Gianrico Carofiglio. Bitter Lemon Press, October 2007. 249 pp. $14.95 ISBN 1904738249

Reviewed by George J. Leonard, San Francisco State University.

Since the SFHR is usually appealed to when works of merit can’t find appropriate reviews, we were slightly mystified to be sent the new legal thriller by Gianrico Carofiglio, which comes adorned with blurbs from the New Yorker and the London Times. “Carofiglio writes crisp, ironical novels,” the New Yorker’s reviewer tells us, “that are as much love stories and philosophical treatises as they are legal thrillers.” Reasonable Doubts is his third novel featuring a Guido Guerrieri, a public defender.

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