Jess Kimball will be here to discuss her new book, She Can Hold Her Own. Self-sufficiency and pace of life are among the things that distinguish Southern Appalachian female homesteaders from others in society. Through portraits and interviews, this book presents the experiences of women who are raising families, caring for animals, and sustaining households through practical knowledge, skill, and faith. Their narratives reflect lives shaped not only by physical labor, but by simplicity and deep connections to land and legacy. Combining documentary photography with extended, conversational interviews, the book offers a portrait of rural womanhood that is rooted in ancestral knowledge while also responding to present-day realities. It focuses on the spiritual and emotional dimensions of homesteading, situating these women within broader discussion of resilience, community, and choice. Rather than presenting a guide for rural lifestyles, the work serves as a study of the relationships between womanhood, labor, identity, and landscape.

Jess Kimball is a birthworker, writer, and artist whose work honors women’s stories, health, and ancestral knowledge. She lives on a small homestead in rural North Carolina, where her experiences as a doula and her deep connection to land and community inspire her writing.

Through rare access to the Violent Femmes and their archives, this book investigates the creation of such iconic songs as "Blister in the Sun", "Kiss Off", "Add it Up" and "Prove My Love", as well as the album's recording process.

The self-titled debut from Milwaukee post-punk acoustic trio the Violent Femmes is one of those rare albums that seems to have altered the course of popular music and influenced just about everyone who heard it while also managing to operate almost entirely outside of the mainstream. Released in 1983 to little sales or attention, the band was so iconoclastic that it couldn't even engender support from Milwaukee's anti-establishment punk scene. Over the ensuing years, though, Violent Femmes managed to exert itself as an unstoppable cultural force, ascending the college radio charts and spreading through word-of-mouth.

Violent Femmes didn't sound like anything else when it was made, and it still doesn't sound like anything else. The album somehow exists both outside of time and as one of the most evocative and enduring artifacts of the alternative '80's.

Nic will chat about his book and answer questions. As always, this event is free and open to everyone!

Come to read your own original poetry, something by your favorite poet, or come just to listen. Musicians are also welcome to jam with the poets. No advance registration required and everyone is welcome!

This event happens on the fourth Friday of every month (which isn’t always the last Friday).

All day, bring in your Blacksburg Books tote bag and get 20% off books!

Consignment books are excluded, but everything else is fair game!

All day, wear your Blacksburg Books t-shirt (any style) and get 20% off almost everything in the store!

Consignment items are excluded, but everything else is fair game!

Author Phillip Andrew Gibbs explores Roanoke's early criminal underworld and how civic leaders and law enforcement struggled to free the city from its wild, wicked, and unrepentant reputation.

During the 1880s, the new city of Roanoke attracted a large and diverse workforce and a multitude of merchants and investors. But like the Western cow towns and mining camps of the same period, the city also attracted sex workers, professional gamblers, charlatans, and common thieves. By the early 1900s, Roanoke had become well known for its brothels, saloons, gambling halls, and rampant lawlessness.

Despite a campaign to clean up the city, Roanoke was unable to shake its unsavory image. This was particularly true after Virginia went dry in 1916. With easy access to the moonshine whiskey that had long been produced in the surrounding mountains, bootleg kingpins boldly transported illegal liquor into the city and used violence to protect their operations.

Join us for an evening with authors from Shenandoah Fantastic and Virginia Fantastic!

Shenandoah Fantastic invites you to experience the mysterious, the supernatural, and the humorous. Ride a ghost train to Mount Jackson. Visit the trolls that live beneath Luray Caverns. Experience a bird revolution in Singers Glen. And meet time travelers at the Shakespeare Center. Whether you’re a long-time resident or a curious traveler, this anthology promises to captivate and thrill, offering a glimpse into the Valley where the ordinary meets the extraordinary.

Virginia Fantastic is full of stories that weave strange and wondrous speculative fiction that reimagines the Commonwealth of Virginia as a land of mystery, magic, and the unexpected.From the misty peaks of the Blue Ridge to the haunted shores of the Chesapeake Bay, we seek flash stories that infuse Virginia’s iconic landscapes, history, and culture with the supernatural.

Winner of the 2025 Oral History Association Book Award

Winner of the Albert Lee Sturm Award for Faculty Excellence

Finalist for the 2026 Veterans Studies Association Distinguished Book Award

The United States has both the largest, most expensive, and most powerful military and the largest, most expensive, and most punitive carceral system in the history of the world. Since the American War in Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of veterans have been incarcerated after their military service.

Identifying the previously unrecognized connections between American wars and mass incarceration, Prisoners after War reaches across lines of race, class, and gender to record the untold history of incarcerated veterans over the past six decades. Having conducted dozens of oral history interviews, Jason A. Higgins traces the lifelong effects of war, inequality, disability, and mental illness, and explores why hundreds of thousands of veterans, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, were caught up in the carceral system. This original study tells an intergenerational history of state-sanctioned violence, punishment, and inequality, but its pages also resonate with stories of survival and redemption, revealing future possibilities for reform and reparative justice.

Join us for our FIFTH Indie Bookstore Day—a national party held the last Saturday in April that celebrates independent bookstores across the country.

AGAIN this year we’ll be participating in the Libro.fm Golden Ticket Giveaway - find the Golden Ticket hidden in our store and win free audiobook credits!

We’ll also have a raffle for a $50 gift card!

We'll have IBD exclusives and freebies, and raffles to win all sorts of cool prizes!

And of course, there will be snacks. Join us!

Come to read your own original poetry, something by your favorite poet, or come just to listen. Musicians are also welcome to jam with the poets. No advance registration required and everyone is welcome!

In this heartfelt, heartbreaking collection, Michael Hettich reaches into the wilds to find some measure of the eternal that might wedge itself between himself and the unthinkable: the death of his beloved. He calls upon memory as if to rewind their lives together and forestall the inevitable. He immerses himself in the forces that might provide some solace, might somehow outlast the darkness, the silence. In language as vivid as the pulsing life around him—the swollen creeks, the mountains; sky, stars, and wind; birds and bears—he contains those elements and lets them speak.

—Marie Harris, Desire Lines

Michael Hettich has published more than a dozen books of poetry, most recently The Halo of Bees: New and Selected Poems, 1990-2022 which won the 2024 Brockman-Campbell Book Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society. His other honors include several Individual Artist Fellowships from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, The Tampa Review Prize in Poetry, the David Martinson / Meadowhawk Prize, a Florida Book Award, the Lena M. Shull Book Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society, and the inaugural Hudson-Fowler Prize from Slant magazine at the University of Central Arkansas. His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in many journals and anthologies. He holds a Ph.D. in literature and taught for many years at Miami Dade College. He lives in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

Join us for an event with returning author Emily Matchar, author of In the Shadow of the Greenbrier!

The Lost Girl of Craven County tells the story of a young Jewish woman in depression-era Appalachia uncovering secrets of the past. A decade into the Depression, Millicent Green is a 25-year-old "old maid" living with her marriage-obsessed mother and domineering older brother in the stiflingly small Jewish community of New Bern, North Carolina. Smart and prickly, she’s struggling to find her place in the world following the loss of her beloved younger brother, and with him, her dreams for the future. One humid August day, Millie is sent to run an errand and discovers a young woman unconscious on the ground. This mystery woman, mute and without identification, will upend Millie’s life. Together, they set out on a quest that will lay bare some of the 20th century’s most shameful episodes. From a historic river town to the hinterlands of rural North Carolina, The Lost Girl of Craven County delves into the impossibility of burying secrets forever.

Celebrate the publication of Sophia Terazawa's third book of poetry, Oracular Maladies. The event will include an author performance, book signings, and tarot card readings by request with a purchase of the book.

Please note that this event will take place at the Blacksburg Public Library.

Join us for an evening with narrative journalist Kenneth R. Rosen to discuss his new book, Polar Wars: Submarines, Spies, and the Struggle for Power in a Melting Arctic, A gripping blend of travelogue and frontline reporting that reveals how climate change, military ambition, and economic opportunity are transforming the Arctic into the epicenter of a new cold war, where a struggle for dominance between the planet's great powers heralds the next global conflict.

Russian spies. Nuclear submarines. Sabotaged pipelines. Undersea communications severed in the dark of night. The fastest-warming place on earth--where apartment buildings, hospitals, and homes crumble daily as permafrost melts and villages get washed away by rising seas--the Arctic stands at the crossroads of geopolitical ambition and environmental catastrophe. As climate change thaws the northern latitudes, opening once ice-bound shipping lanes and access to natural resources, the world's military powers are rushing to stake their claims in this increasingly strategic region. We've entered a new cold war--and every day it grows hotter.

In Polar War, Kenneth R. Rosen takes readers on an extraordinary journey across the changing face of the far north. Through intimate portraits of scientists, soldiers, and Indigenous community leaders representing the interests of twenty-one countries across four continents, he witnesses firsthand how rising temperatures and growing tensions are reshaping life above and below the Arctic Circle. He finds himself on the trail of Navy SEALs training for arctic warfare, embarks on Coast Guard patrols monitoring Russian incursions, participates in close-quarter-combat training aboard foreign icebreakers in the Arctic sea ice, and visits remote research stations where international cooperation is giving way to espionage and the search for long-frozen biological weapons.

Kenneth R. Rosen is a narrative journalist who travels the world to write in-depth stories about the impact of major geopolitical issues and conflict on individual lives. He was a 2025 Ira A. Lipman Fellow at Columbia University.

Rosen received the 2022 Kurt Schork Freelance Award for his reporting from Ukraine, Syria, and Malta, which the judges called “courageous multifaceted investigative work.”

He is a two-time finalist for the Livingston Award in international reporting and, among other honors, he received the 2018 Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award for War Correspondents for his reporting from Iraq and was a finalist in 2019 for his reporting from within Syria.

Join us to discuss Pumpkin by Julie Murphy! Banned for: LGBT content, drag queens, openly gay main character

Join us for an evening with Jeffrey Bennett as he discusses his new book, The Black Belt of Virginia: Untold Stories of African American History, which contains powerful stories left out of most history books.

Bennett reveals the hidden legacy of Black Virginians. From 1865 to 1877, over 80 Black politicians served across the state. Learn about a brave Black woman who spied on Confederate President Jefferson Davis while disguised as an enslaved worker.

See the history of more than seventy Black communities lost in Virginia. Read the story of a 135-year-old church and the meaning behind land passed down through generations. These stories show the strength and impact of Black families before and after slavery.

Perfect for history lovers and older readers, this collection brings forgotten voices back to life. This event is free and open to everyone!

Come to read your own original poetry, something by your favorite poet, or come just to listen. Musicians are also welcome to jam with the poets. No advance registration required and everyone is welcome!

***THIS EVENT IS CANCELED***

Stay tuned for a rescheduled event later in the Spring.

Kevin Moffett will read from his novel Only Son, which was longlisted for the National Book Award, and Matt Vollmer’s going to surprise us. This event is free and open to everyone!

Join us for a discussion of the bestselling book Never Enough by Judith Grisel.

From a renowned behavioral neuroscientist and recovering addict, a rare page-turning work of science that draws on personal insights to reveal how drugs work, the dangerous hold they can take on the brain, and the surprising way to combat today's epidemic of addiction.

Students and faculty from Virginia Tech's Neuroscience Department will join the discussion. Please note that there are TWO meetings to discuss the book - February 25th and March 18th. Come to either or both - everyone is welcome!

Join us for an event with two fantastic authors - Mollie Ann Cox and Mindy Quigley - to celebrate the release of Cox's second Eliza Hamilton mystery!

The widow of Alexander Hamilton faces another mystery -it’s December 1805, and Eliza Hamilton is determined to seek justice. One young woman is dead, another has vanished—both residents of a house where Eliza’s friend, Alice, lives among other craftswomen struggling to survive in a city unforgiving toward widows and orphans.

With no help from the constabulary because the young woman’s body was found in a bad part of town–and was dressed as a man–Eliza vows to protect the women and uncover the truth. She suspects a connection between the death and the disappearance, especially given that the young lady who disappeared went missing while searching for the woman who was later found dead.
As Eliza traces their last known steps, she unearths a hidden world of dangerous secrets lurking beneath the city—secrets that could tear apart everything she holds dear. This pulse-racing historical mystery will intrigue and delight anyone fascinated by the founding fathers and feminist history.

Mollie Ann Cox is the author of several popular mystery series, also writing under the pen named Maggie Blackburn and Mollie Cox Bryan. Her books have been selected as finalists for an Agatha Award and a Daphne du Maurier Award and as a Top 10 Beach Reads by Woman's World. She lives in Charlottesville, VA.

Mindy Quigley is the author of several books, including the Six Feet Deep series, the most recent installment of which has been nominated for an Agatha Award. She lives in Blacksburg, VA.

My Life with the Walter Boys meets The Notebook in this small town baseball romance perfect for fans of Kasie West and Carley Fortune.

High school junior Eliza Crowley is known as the Princess of Fairfield, a farm town in North Carolina that loves two things--tradition and baseball. Although Eliza loves "the game," her life goal is to become a lighting designer on Broadway. Shaking off her reputation as the rich girl and focusing on her town's community theater production are what she's set her sights on this summer, and nothing will stand in her way. That is until Reed Fulton, the grandson of a struggling Fairfield farmer, and ace pitcher of the Fulton Hawks, returns to town. Reed dreams of putting the catastrophe of last season behind him and leading the Hawks to a championship victory against the Crowley Cardinals. When his childhood friend turned stranger, Eliza, strolls back into his life, she makes his heart accelerate quicker than his fastball, and he's not sure he can stay away from the girl he's supposed to despise. Small-town summers and baseball draw Reed and Eliza together, even though the Crowleys and the Fultons are determined to run each other out of town. When the families make a deal to settle their thirty-year-long dispute once and for all, Eliza and Reed are stuck in the middle during the most important summer of their lives.