The TOMS story is essentially one man putting capitalism and philanthropyin a blender and hitting Ice Crush. Blake Mycoskie’s book Start Something That Matters is his way of convincing readers to do the same. Mycoskie, founder and Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS, the innovative and fast-growing shoe company, believes that anyone can make a difference in the world through their work and enjoy doing it. This short and concise book begins by telling the TOMS story, in which the twenty-nine-year-old author is inspired to do something about the prolific lack of footwear in Argentina.

It’s official: Mindy Kaling completes a holy comedic triumvirate with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. If you don’t believe me, then you really need to read Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), Kaling’s recently released collection of essays.

Perfect for any high school or college-aged female looking for confidence and support, What You Really Really Want provides insight to young women on the most difficult topics of sex, safety and interpersonal relationships. Jaclyn Friedman covers a variety of issues with perspective from women of all different sexual, religious, and racial backgrounds.

ALL ACCESS: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Photography of Ken Regan, released this past October, brings readers behind the scenes and on stage with music legends like Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin. The 304-page book is a compilation of high quality snapshots by famous photographer Ken Regan, beginning in the 1960’s and up through the present. The introduction, by The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, and preface by Keith Richards add authenticity to the collection, and demonstrate the lifelong connections Regan has made throughout his career.

When a good friend recommended that I read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, I didn’t know whether to be insulted that the dark half-moons under my eyes had tipped her off to my impending senior angst, or grateful that she too shared my terror and found solace in that innocent blue and yellow hardcover. As the full title of the work suggests, The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, recounts one woman’s year-long project to become happier. Unlike other more drastic undertakings, such as that chronicled in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, Rubin’s goal is not to find happiness by escaping the confines of a mundane life, but rather by enhancing the joys of everyday living.

On Saturday Oct. 22, the Willits-Hallowell Center hosted the 25th annual WriteAngles Conference. The conference’s goal is to promote communication among writers. “Writing is a solitary job,” conference coordinator Daisy Mathias said. “[Writers] love to hear other writers talk about writing and they love to do so [themselves].”

Don’t let the title fool you – The Marriage Plot is not just another evolution of a timeless tale of boy-meets-girl-romance. In fact, it’s anything but. This latest novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides explores the vagaries of young adulthood and follows the experiences of three Brown graduates of the class of ’82.

As an 11-year-old boards the ocean liner that is to be “the first and only ship of his life,” the prospect of a three-week voyage between Colombo and London strikes him as less extraordinary than the idea that his mother will manage to find him on the London pier when he arrives. A note slipped under his cabin door indicates that he will take his meals at Table 76. Arriving in the dining room, he quickly discovers he has been assigned to the Cat’s Table along with other passengers insignificant enough to sit at the table farthest from the captain.

“Normally, I do not stalk people in grocery stores,” was not exactly the first line I was anticipating when reading Kathleen Flinn’s The Kitchen Counter Cooking School. Needless to say, Kathleen’s fearless tackling of experiments and charming sense of humor in transforming nine cooking-challenged women into fearless culinary masters proved more than entertaining. The journey begins in a grocery store, when Flinn finds herself guilty of judging one woman’s grocery cart filled with frozen and processed food.

On Sept. 29, the rainy weather did not stop people from turning out in droves to see author and farmer Ben Hewitt speak in his talk “The Future’s in the Dirt,” a discussion about food culture and his new book Making Supper Safe: One Man’s Quest to Learn the Truth About Food Safety, in Gamble Auditorium. Hewitt began his lecture with a simple, yet intriguing question, “If we stay on the path we are now and 50 years from now we look back, will we say we’ve done a great job?” Everyone in the room came to an immediate consensus: of course not.