The Blueberry Years is a new memoir by local author Jim Minick, chronicling the organic pick-your-own blueberry farm he and his wife started and ran for 10 years. The book also includes recipes and various historical bits about organic farming and blueberry lore.

On Wednesday, Sept. 1, the New River Voice and the Freedom Foundation for Southwest Virginia will celebrate the book by hosting a release party. Join us at 6 p.m. in the Sunken Garden Amphitheatre at Nesselrod on the New in Fairlawn for a reading, signing, and live entertainment by musical acts Dallas Leonard and Triscale. (more…)

Radford University Geography Professor Grigory Ioffe has published Russia and The Near Abroad, a textbook collection of essays penned by the Moscow native about Russia and 11 former Soviet republics. (more…)

Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, the popular, best-selling narrative that tells the story of how the author’s family was changed by one year of deliberately eating food produced in the place where they live, has been selected for Virginia Tech’s Common Book Project for the 2010-11 academic year. (more…)

The publication of Sharyn McCrumb’s new “ballad novel,” The Devil Amongst the Lawyers, will be celebrated at a special event at Barter Theatre on Wednesday, June 23, at 7:30 p.m., the day after its national release. The event is co-sponsored by Barter Theatre and the Friends of the Washington County Public Library. (more…)

Noted Appalachian authors will present public readings as part of Radford University’s 33rd annual Highland Summer Conference, the longest-known credit-based creative writing workshop in the Appalachian region. (more…)

James Alexander Thom, author of “Follow the River,” a historical novel about Mary Draper Ingles, will speak Saturday, May 1, at a fundraiser celebrating the frontierswoman. (more…)