Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (top), Jenna Bush, and Joseph Ellis were among the dozens of writers taking part in the Texas Book Festival in Austin last weekend. The Dallas Morning News book blog, Texas Pages, has photos and more photos, and plenty of reports from the scene.

Meanwhile, the Miami Book Fair is coming up this weekend, which prompted Miami Herald reporter Andres Viglucci to wonder why a city of 360,000+ people has no general-interest bookstore. "Can Miami claim to be a center of arts, culture and commerce without a major bookstore in its city limits?" Viglucci asks. "How can a city have a new half-billion-dollar performing arts center but no bookstore?" Basically, it boils down to a lack of a sufficiently robust retail zone in Miami, period, but at least one independent bookstore hopes to buck that trend by opening in Coconut Grove later this month. The Bookstore in the Grove will also, according to the article, feature a café/wine bar.