Inspired by the government writing projects of the depression, the editors of State by State assigned writers to pen essays on each of the states. It’s a fun exercise. My home state essay, Jonathan Franzen interviewing New York—and her publicists—is terrific. I also enjoyed Jack Hitt on South Carolina snobbery and Tony Horwitz on Virginia’s morbid sensibility. States are weird political entities and it’s hard to know more than a few well. Thumbing around this book is a great way to see the country.

Bio: Alex Halperin is an editor at Guernica. Read his last recommendation “here”:https://guernicamag.com/blog/1469/rec_room_alex_halperin_hard_ei/.