Reading on the Road: If I could offer you one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.

From one of the most popular graduation columns of all time... 

I'm off to northern California this weekend to see my little brother and sister graduate from college. Where did those years go?After lugging around my earthly possessions for six weeks I am relieved to be packing the bare minimum, and am complementing it with Stacy A. Cordery's JULIETTE GORDON LOW and Sheri Fink's fall-anticipated FIVE DAYS AT MEMORIAL with an eye to passing both along to family members. (Not the graduating ones, who will get proper gifts.)

If I fell into another bookstore there, I wouldn't be too disappointed. I have a flashbulb memory of visiting the Klutz store in Palo Alto, a garagelike building at the end of a street but filled with wonders; it's too bad it seems to have since closed.

BEA 2013: Fall Buzz Books to Watch

Live from BEA, the publishing industry's conference/bonanza.

One much anticipated conference session at BEA every year is the Editors' Buzz panel, in which editors present six hotly anticipated fall books. Its track record isn't perfect -- of last year's adult books, one became a huge commercial breakout and two critical darlings -- but the curiosity renews itself anyway.

My laptop was long dead by the time yesterday's panel rolled around but I took copious notes on this year's picks, including "X meets Y" Hollywood-style descriptors and other stray comments. Click to embiggen: