The Reading Rock Books art gallery is featuring several artists this month whose works include painting, block prints, digital art, and other visual arts. The artists featured this month are Barbara Herrick, Miranda Herrick, John Hill, Anne F. Kiernan, and Richard J. Rudden. These pieces will only be up for the month of July and they’re all for sale, so come by the store and see them while they’re here!

Part “X Files” and part “CSI,” The Strain, by famed fantasy and horror film director Guillermo Del Toro and veteran mystery and horror novelist Chuck Hogan, is this summer’s anti-Twilight. For readers eager for a seriously scary and mature twist on the folklore of vampires, this is the beginning of what will prove to be a very successful and well-recieved trilogy. The book centers around Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, a leading epidemiologist with the CDC, as he investigates what appears to be a potential pandemic originating from a quarantined 777 on the runway at JFK. As the mysteries of the “dead” airplane unravel, Eph is confronted by strange missing bodies, deformed corpses, and a seemingly-lunatic, vampire-hunting holocaust survivor, all while trying to balance his new leadership position at the CDC and his not-so-quietly-unraveling home and love life.

The Strain is sophisticated horror and carefully-crafted characters all wrapped in the immense level of science fiction and horror imagination you would expect from the director of Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy.

Recommended by John.

Following the death of April’s brother, April and Oliver are once again in each other’s lives. The best of childhood friends, April and Oliver went their separate ways after high school and are now adults dealing with old wounds and years of faulty decisions. April and Oliver is a character-driven story of messy lives, the hope of redemption, and the lingering heartache of childhood. Their story is not always pleasant, as April deals with her abusive past and present and Oliver struggles to find his own way, but the characters are full and engaging.

The IndieBound website now has cute spring e-cards. The dog pictured here is an example, but the actual e-cards are animated.

The winners of the 2009 Indies Choice Book Awards, which are voted on by owners and booksellers of ABA member book stores, were announced this week. The winners are:

Best Indie Buzz Book (Fiction): The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (The Dial Press)

Best Conversation Starter (Nonfiction): The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell (Riverhead)

Best Author Discovery: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski (Ecco)

Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Book (Fiction): The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)

Best New Picture Book: Bats at the Library, by Brian Lies (Houghton Mifflin)

Most Engaging Author: Sherman Alexie

Following last night’s signing at Erin City Hall, we have signed copies of Tom C. McKenney’s new book Jack Hinson’s One-Man War.

Jack Hinson, a plantation owner with no strong ties to either side at the start of the Civil War, became a vigilante sniper after two of his sons were killed by Union troops. Most of Hinson’s activity took place in Houston and Stewart counties, especially along rivers, where he took aim at Union steam boats. McKenney’s book relies on information passed on to him by Hinson’s descendants, who are still residents of Houston County, as well as his own research.

Tom C. McKenney signing books on April 14.

In honor of National Poetry Month, our selection of poetry books will be 10% off for the month of April.

Want more poetry? Sign up on poets.org to have a new poem emailed to you every day this month.

When you’re ready to assemble this year’s Easter baskets, come take a look at our new selection of kid’s stuff, including locked diaries and reusable vinyl sticker sets.