Ashes to Asheville 

Sarah Dooley

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain

John Boyne

SAN FRANCISCO—The 10th-floor ballroom of San Francisco’s Marines’ Memorial Club & Hotel has high, coffered ceilings and baroque-style drapes and chandeliers. As 250 men in business casual filled the room early this year for the city’s fourth annual “Surrogacy Conference and Expo,” all eyes were on four female panelists at the front. The topic: how gay men can have babies using surrogates.

Ox-Cart Man 

Donald Hall

Picture books can provide children an age-appropriate introduction to weighty and complex historical figures.

On a clear California morning, golden hills stretch to the east of Interstate Highway 680 as commuters pass by on the way to San Francisco Bay. For many, the Crow Canyon exit in San Ramon is nothing more than an affluent pit stop, with a string of hotels, chain restaurants, and office buildings.

Hour of the Bees 

Lindsay Eagar