The new pick for Oprah's Book Club appears to be "Say You're One of Them," Uwen Akpan's collection of short stories about the lives of African children. News reports in The Washington Post and other media provide a peek at the pick, which Oprah plans to announce later today on her show. (Update: Oprah has made the pick official.) It's been a while between picks -- the last one, about a year ago, was David Wroblewski's "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle." It became an instant best seller, of course.

Akpan's book should be a refreshing counterpoint to the frenzy over "The Lost Symbol." (I shudder to think what would have happened if Oprah had chosen Dan Brown's book for her club -- the resulting storm would have been like the earth and moon colliding.)

If you want to get a head start on Akpan's book, you can read two of the stories, "An Ex-Mas Feast" and "My Parents' Bedroom," on The New Yorker's website. And here's Akpan describing his collection, as it was being written: "I would like to see a book about how children are faring in these endless conflicts in Africa. I would like to really know how kids are dealing with the genocide in Darfur. What is the torment like for a child who went through the tsunami? I would like to get into the head of a kid soldier in Sierra Leone. It is scary and painful. And the world is not looking."