Inspired by the remarkable guide books of the Federal Writers' Project published during the Great Depression, the editors of State by State asked fifty of our country's greatest authors to bring their talents, memories and observations to this brand new anthology. The remarkable roster includes Jhumpa Lahiri on Rhode Island; Jonathan Franzen on New York; William T. Vollman on California; Louise Erdrich on North Dakota; S.E. Hinton on Oklahoma; Ann Patchett on Tennessee; John Hodgman on Massachusetts; Anthony Bourdain on New Jersey; David Rakoff on Utah; and Alison Bechdel on Vermont.
Every state is covered and a conversation with Pulitzer Prize winner, Edward P. Jones, ensures that Washington, D.C. is not left out. And just think: if you read one essay a week, you will have gone on a virtual road trip of the entire country by the end of 2009.
Each entry is prefaced by facts and figures about the state in question, and there are, in the center of the book, fifty photos submitted by the authors.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
Included in an appendix are thirty tables where states are ranked according to various criteria ranging from population, incarceration rates, obesity and toothlessness to violent crime, unemployment, voter participation and roller coasters per capita. Where does your state rank?
At a New Year's party last week, I used these tables to create a trivia competition (with an overly complicated scoring system) gauging how well players knew the states they were assigned. Jason won handily while representing Florida, although Katie from Rhode Island staged a major comeback in the last three rounds.
For today's trivia bytes, the state of New York ranks first or last in four of the thirty tables.
It turns out that Empire State has the lowest suicide rate in the nation (only 6.2 out of 100,000 residents) even though it also has the longest mean travel time to work (30.9 minutes).
New York pays $14,119 per pupil, which is the highest expenditure for public education.
But the most surprising byte: New York has the lowest percentage of population born elsewhere in the United States--only 17.7% of its residents were born in another state. (21.6% were born in another country--second only to California--but that's another table.)
For more information on the book, to see a list of all the writers and their respective states, or just to browse inside, visit the State by State page at HarperCollins.com.
And now I'm off to visit Colorado with Benjamin Kunkel. Peace!
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