The story that comes to mind when reading Haleh Esfandiari’s memoir of wrongful arrest, surprise raids, puzzling interrogations, and solitary confinement in Ahmadinejad’s Iran is Franz Kafka’s dystopian novel The Trial. Yet unlike the fictional bank clerk Joseph K., Esfandiari—who runs the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Middle East Program in DC—survived her ordeal, including four months in Iran’s Evin Prison on trumped-up charges, to deliver a taut, jolting narrative that describes how life in the Islamic republic is stranger—and darker—than fiction.

Esfandiari, who fled Iran in the winter of 1978, had been visiting her mother in 2006 when Iranian police forced her cab off the highway outside Tehran, swiped her passports and plane tickets, and disappeared into the night.

Interrogations follow. Esfandiari pleads her innocence. An investigator with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence twists her testimony. The story, a snapshot of Iranian paranoia in response to the Bush administration’s rhetoric, is also a luminous panorama of Iranian life. In prison, Esfandiari befriends the female guards, whose dark chadors disguise worldly concerns about body weight, love, and the future. In the juxtaposition of these women with Esfandiari and the generation that came of age before the revolution, the book channels another Kafka story, The Metamorphosis. As Esfandiari’s tale proves, Gregor Samsa’s transformation from man to insect is no more frightening than Iran’s from homeland to prison.

Could Judge Wood be promoted? Photograph courtesy University of Chicago Law School and Harris School of Public Policy

President Obama’s first Supreme Court pick, Sonia Sotomayor, is likely still unpacking, but high-court observers are placing early bets on the next new justice. John Paul Stevens, 89, has hired just one law clerk for the 2010–11 term, bolstering speculation that his retirement is imminent. In the past, Stevens—the oldest member of the court—had by this time of year hired all four of his clerks for the next term. Retired justices can hire one clerk.

Lots of names get bandied about anytime a spot appears poised to open up. Predictions from Supreme Court advocates and former Stevens clerks include Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, US attorney general Eric Holder, and DC Appeals Court judge Merrick Garland. Court watchers think Obama will go for a woman, a minority, or someone whose credentials would diversify the court, such as a governor.

It’s a rite of passage for graduates of top law schools. With offers in hand from prestigious firms, these charmed young legal brains take the bar exam, flit off to exotic locales for the traditional post-exam holiday, then return in the fall to begin their lives as first-year associates with salaries that top those of federal district judges.

Not this year. Hundreds of first-year lawyers were told by firms across Washington that their start dates had been pushed back by as much as a year. Dubbed “deferred associates,” they’re symbols of a legal industry battered by the economy. “A lot of people are really just depressed about the whole situation,” says Joe Records, who had his start date at Wiley Rein delayed until next fall.

The news isn’t all bad. Several law firms, including Wiley Rein, have offered stipends of about $60,000 to deferred lawyers. Some firms are requiring, or at least encouraging, them to spend the coming months at public-interest organizations. Thus, in an odd twist, the deferred lawyers are probably still making more than many attorneys who do public-interest work full-time.

Investigative reporter James Grimaldi’s fall series on the Skins hit the team for its ticket practices. Photograph by Matthew Worden

Washington Post editors often say the paper’s two most important beats are the Redskins and the White House. They devote lots of reporters and space to covering the teams at 1600 Pennsylvania and FedEx Field. Matched head to head, which is better—White House or Redskins coverage?

The Redskins

The Post has three full-time reporters on the Skins beat: Jason Reid is in his third year as chief writer. He usually writes the game-day story and most items in the Redskins Insider blog; Rick Maese, the beat’s newest reporter, came from the Baltimore Sun to replace Jason LaCanfora, who went to TV; Barry Svrluga switched from covering the Washington Nationals to writing features about the football team.

On game days, the Post floods the Redskins zone. The press box hosts seven Posties: the three beat writers plus two columnists as well as utility writers Dan Steinberg and Paul Tenorio.

The Post has had a rocky relationship with Redskins owner Dan Snyder. A few years ago, the Skins accused the Post of meddling in the locker room and writing too many negative articles. Team executives tried to undermine Nunyo Demasio, then the beat reporter. The Redskins yanked 267 of the Post’s season tickets as part of a 2004 dispute over coverage and alleged resale of the tickets.

After years as an advice columnist, Emily Yoffe has grown careful about what she asks other people. Photograph by Chris Leaman

As author of the Dear Prudence advice column, Slate correspondent Emily Yoffe has a job that allows her to explore and learn about some odd corners of human existence.

In addition to sifting through hundreds of plaintive and sometimes humorous letters sent to her advice column each month, she has signed herself up for experiments ranging from a vow of silence to becoming a “drag king” for Slate’s Human Guinea Pig column.

In her own words:

‘‘I owe my career to Mike Kinsley. He plucked me out of the intern-application pile at the New Republic years ago.

I’m the third Prudence. Herb Stein, an economic adviser to President Nixon, started Dear Prudence. He was a friend of Mike’s and thought Slate needed an advice column.

Then it was taken over by Margo Howard, the daughter of Ann Landers. When I heard she was leaving, I thought I had to go for this.

Eugenia Kim drew on her Korean heritage for her first novel. Photograph by Chris Leaman

Everything is churning on the Korean peninsula in Washington writer Eugenia Kim’s debut novel, The Calligrapher’s Daughter.

In a dream, Najin—the willful young woman at the center of this story about self-discovery, spiritual awakening, and the fraying yet firm bonds of family—glimpses her ancestors’ response to Korea’s early-20th-century sociopolitical upheaval: “I saw how the wind blew their sighs of sorrow, the rain scattered their tears, and snow spread their icy dismay as Western thought, Japan and Bleak Future crossed our unwilling, hermit’s threshold.”

Determined to uphold family tradition, Najin’s father betroths her to the son of a painter and fellow resistance worker. Outraged, Najin’s mother sends her to live with family in the royal city of Seoul. The move opens both professional opportunities for Najin and a rift between father and daughter that two decades can only begin to mend.

Employing a variety of narrators, Kim’s writing is most arresting tethered to the tongue of Najin, a character modeled loosely on the author’s mother, who emigrated to the US with her husband in 1948.

It’s the connection between Najin and her mother that gives this sprawling, buoyant tale its emotional anchor.

Henry Holt, $26