Annals of Book-Nerd Handicapping: The litblog Galleycat is floating a few good reasons to believe that Oprah's next book-club pick will be Edward P. Jones' All Aunt Hagar's Children, a (tremendous) collection of District-set short stories. Official word comes down Sept. 19.

In the mail today: State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, a collection that proudly announces on the cover that it features "50 writers on 50 states." There's a nice batch of writers essayifying on Georgia (Ha Jin), Maryland (Myla Goldberg), Ohio (Susan Orlean), and so on. Better still, D.C. didn't get neglected: The [...]