Surprisingly, much of his base is made up of college-based students. Ron Paul has somehow won them over, and he did not do so through empty rhetoric, false promises, and harassing the competition. He did so by being the only candidate to put forth original, promising, and bipartisan solutions.

While his ideas appear to be radical to many, in reality they adhere to the constitutional values that our forefathers put forth and are time-tested and historically proven to work. In his latest book, “End the Fed,” Ron Paul outlines in detail one of his “most radical” items on his agenda, ending the federal reserve, otherwise known as the central banking system.

It sounds complicated already, but Paul is an accomplished writer having authored a previous release, the widely read “The Revolution.” Paul breaks down the complexities of the national banking system, exposing the faults and flaws and explaining in the most common sense terms how the federal reserve is responsible for the recession and how, if it is not overhauled entirely, will lead to the largest depression the nation has ever faced.

“End the Fed” speaks to every American citizen, no matter what party affiliation he or she may associate with. Paul grasps the severity of the issue, understands that if affects us all. His writing neither preaches nor instigates; it merely informs. Paul understands that ignorance of this issue is what will be our ultimate downfall.

That is why he wrote this book so even one who is not familiar with politics will be able to seize the underlying meaning, the message. It is an informative piece of writing that captures the entire history of the federal reserve and explains how and why it cannot work.

The Federal Reserve is an entity that controls how Americans are able to function in day to day life. Ignorance of its existence is no longer a luxury. With its bipartisan message, easy readability, and powerful ability to inspire, “End the Fed” is all you will need to become part of the solution.

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For those familiar with Lin’s previous work, Shoplifting reads more like an extended story from his short story compilation, Bed, rather than a shortened version of his novel, Eeeee Eee Eeee. For those not familiar with Lin’s previous work, for shame. You should be.

Lin exemplifies exactly what it takes for a young author to break into the modern publishing world and maintain a modicum of success once in it. Through his internet persona, Lin has used gimmicks and scandals to boost his presence and gather as many haters as well as fans.

Such gimmickry includes auctioning his Myspace account password which led to earning more than $8,000 on Ebay as well as selling shares for a novel that, at the time, he had not yet written.

His blog is primarily used for self-promotion where he posts anything from substandard artwork and Gmail chats to advertisements of “surprise boxes” containing items packaged from his room to sell for whatever amount of money a fan may be willing to pay.

While his detractors are all too fond of calling him a fraud, Lin’s success speaks for itself. Lin has published two poetry anthologies, a novel, a collection of short stories, and now this novella, all before turning 30. He also established MuuMuu House, Lin’s very own publishing house.

What does any of this have to do with Shoplifting? Pretty much everything. The main protagonist, Sam, is a young writer in New York City with a small amount of success, suffering from severe depression, and chats on Gmail. Shoplifting is a fictitious version of Lin’s life where only the names of people have been changed. Through the eyes of Sam, Lin explores many aspects of his own life. Written in Lin’s detached, minimalistic prose, this novella is best read with a neutral facial expression.

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The biggest problem with writing about characters who are emotionally “detached” from society and other people is you risk your reader becoming emotionally “detached” from your characters and, likewise, your work as a whole.

Fortunately, author Lorrie Moore has proven many times writing about the human condition from an objective perspective, rather than subjectively can be just as emotionally damning to the reader.

She does this especially well, perhaps more so than ever before in her newest novel, “A Gate at the Stairs,” where her dry and emotionally drained college aged protagonist, Tassie, still manages to break your heart, mend it up, then break it again a dozen or so times before the novel ends.

Set in the ominous, haunting world that is the post-9/11 era, Tassie is an awkward country girl moving to a large (and imaginary) Midwestern college city, where as a means of making money she takes on a nanny position for a couple who adopt a biracial toddler.

It is not ironic that the person Tassie relates most to throughout the entire novel is the toddler. When Tassie experiences issues such as dating trouble, racism, and even terrorism, she does so innocently, obliquely, and as if completely unaware such things in the world could exist.

Although the reader is aware of the darkening of life since the events of 9/11, it is only a brief awareness, a vague awareness, brought on by scenes that are sprinkled throughout the book rather than focused on the entire novel.
Such an issue is when her younger brother leaves to fight in Afghanistan. Another is when her current boyfriend, and perhaps first true love, lies to her about being Muslim.

There are many long, dry spells in the novel where seemingly nothing happens, and at the end of the novel, the reader may find him or herself wondering what exactly occurred in the novel.

Rather than trying to create some kind of moral ending where lessons are learned, Moore instead tries to evoke feelings and emotions within the reader.

There is not always a reason for why things happen in life, but it doesn’t mean that meaningless affects us as humans any less powerfully than a lesson learned

For first time readers of Moore, “A Gate at the Stairs” serves as a perfect example of all her other writing and is a great starting point to accustom oneself to the unsettling viewpoint of an author who knows a lot about what it means to feel human.

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He spoke to students about his college experience and the various careers he pursued as well as his impressive accomplishments in the art and gaming industry.

He also left the students with a message that was much more profound.

He connected with the audience immediately, opening his lecture with self-sacrificing humor.

“Being fat and having no friends can work to your advantage,” was displayed on the first projection of his slideshow.

Reyna went on to tell a little about his background.

In high school he had weighed a lot more than his two athletic brothers and was too shy and self-conscious to develop many friendships.

Reyna explained that he spent his whole high school and many of his college years avoiding social interaction by hiding out with other social outcasts in the art wings.

Looking at the confident, genuinely happy man who possessed the stage now, nobody would have guessed he would have ever had a hard time fitting in.

The message Reyna brought to Meyer’s Auditorium was one of hope.

He explained how it is never too late to make a change in your life and that making mistakes is fine as long as one does not let anyone keep them down.

He demonstrated this by attempting multiple times to smash a plastic water bottle with his foot, only to find it undamaged when he picked it up.

Reyna interacted with the audience the entire time he was on stage.

He pointed out people wearing shirts he thought were cool as well as told a group of students that they reminded him of the people who would always picked on him in high school.

His high energy and good humor kept the audience captivated for the entire hour he spoke.

When it came time for the question and answer session, the audience responded warmly with many questions.

During the lecture, Reyna gave the audience a glimpse of his past projects.

He showed clips of the Batman game he had worked on for the Playstation 2 as well as a compilation of images that displayed his talents as a designer.

Reyna explained that had he listened to his parents and went after a more practical career, he would never have come close to achieving his dreams.

Reyna received his BFA in Painting from the University of New Hampshire and his MFA in Painting from the Pratt Institute.

He has had solo exhibitions overseas as well as throughout the United States, including New York.

Presently, he is teaching at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Alexander Reyna has shown in solo exhibitions in New York City and galleries worldwide.

According to his site, his work has been featured in prestigious group shows including the Chelsea Art Museum in Manhattan, the Cheekwood Art Museum in Nashville, the Everson Art Museum at Syracuse University, Rocket Projects in Miami, Spaces Cleveland, and Universities through the world.

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He is once again embracing a mature audience with his new novel, The Mystery of Grace.

Altagracia —or Grace as her friends refer to her—has gone to extreme lengths to make sure trouble stays out of her life.

On her shoulder she has a tattoo of Nuestra Senora de Altagracia for luck, not to mention that her other tattoos from her feet up make for quite a fierce impression.

Yet, luck is not on her side when she steps into a local grocery store just in time to witness it being robbed.

Spooked by her sudden appearance, the paranoid robber opens fire on Grace, leaving enough bullets in her to ensure she will not ever need groceries again.

When Grace gains consciousness, she finds that she is still in the grocery store and unharmed; nothing has changed except the fact that she is dead.

Now she is trapped in a world parallel of hers with ghosts who have also died in the neighborhood.

Nobody knows why they are here. Whether they have constructed this world from their memories or whether they are just a part of someone’s dreams has yet to be discovered.

All Grace knows is that she has twice a year to visit the world of the living to spend time with loved ones and search for clues about her personal version of an afterlife.

Fans of de Lint’s work may be disappointed to discover that the story is not set in the fictitious city of Newford nor features any of the recurring characters found in most of his novels.
De Lint writes a magical tale of new characters and new experiences.

It is a tale of love and loss, and more importantly, what it means to let things go when the time is right.

The Mystery of Grace is bittersweet with  language masterfully crafted in a style that can only belong to de Lint.

Both first time readers of de Lint’s work as well as long time fans will find that they might need to take a lesson from the characters of this novel as the feeling and emotions evoked by The Mystery of Grace take a long time to let go.

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Hall spoke at Lyte Auditorium to a crowd consisting of around 100 listeners ranging vastly in age from students to mature adults.     Accompanying the poet was the Lancaster Literary Guild.

Introduced briefly by Barbara Strasko, Lancaster County’s own, chosen poet laureate as of January 2008, Hall, 80, seemed at ease sitting behind a small desk on stage as he began to read some of his newer poetry. His first poem of the night was a work titled “Pieces.”

Laughter from the audience ensued as the good-humored poet explained he had just finished his latest revisions to “Pieces” as he was being introduced.

After Hall read a few more new poems, he opened a book and read a few of his older works he had selected prior to the reading.

Before each poem he gave a brief description of why he had written it to begin with.

With each poem he read, Hall held the audience captivated with his rumbling, intense voice.

Poems he read included “The Ship Pounding,” a poem about his late wife, and, “Weeds and Peonies,” a poem about the garden his wife created.

He ended the session with two new poems: “Alterations,” and, “Goose Feathe

Most of Hall’s poetry was written about the loss of his wife, fellow poet, Jane Kenyon.

His poems generally linger on loss, death, and disease, but among the darkness and the present anguish exists a sense of hope and a love and appreciation for life and all that once was.

The question and answer session, which came after about an hour of reading poems, is where Hall revealed to the audience small glimpses of who he is as a writer.

“Many of my poems these days touch upon old age,” Hall said when asked about his writing process. “They usually begin with an image, something you can hold onto and visit.

It is normal for me to have written anywhere from 70 to 80 drafts of a single poem. I am also probably the only writer in the country who doesn’t use a computer.”

When one member of the audience asked how growing old has changed his perspective on poetry being written now, Hall honestly replied, “As you get older, you get further out of touch with the young.

I feel quite detached with what is happening concerning poetry at the moment.
I no longer feel the influence of another poet.”

Hall smiled as he was granted a standing ovation, and he promised to answer more questions one-on-one as he signed and sold his works.

Aside from his fifteen books of poetry, Donald Hall has also written several collections of essays, plays and children’s books, most notably Ox-Cart Man, which received the Caldecott Medal.

Hall has also written two memoirs, his latest being, “Unpacking the Boxes: A Memoir of a Life in Poetry,” which was published in 2008.

Donald Hall was born in Hamden, Connecticut and was an only child.

He earned his bachelors degree from Harvard in 1951 and his master in literature from Oxford in 1953.

His writing began in his early life and he continues to write even today at age 81.

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For those who are not familiar with the series, It Had To Be You is a great starting point to test the water of a series that is definitely not for everyone. If you only read books with depth or for intellectual stimulation/enlightenment, then by all means avoid, avoid, avoid. If you are looking for a quick, entertaining read during times of boring, von Ziegesar’s novel might just suit your fancy. And for those of you who are in the know of the series, it is still most likely not a waste of time to give this book a read as it provides new perspectives for already familiar territory.

The novel takes the reader back in time, before the collapse of Nate Archibald and Blair Waldorf’s relationship and the mysterious disappearance of their mutual best friend Serena van der Woodsen. Dan Humphrey is still just a lonely writer, dreaming of a true love. Everything in It Had To Be You consists of brand new material that fans of the series will definitely appreciate, and, often, it feels as if this novel was written by the author as a gift of thanks to her devoted fans.

What makes the novels better than the recent television series based off the books is that the novels, while possessing the same amount of drama and scandal as the television series, are very well-written. Cecily von Ziegesar writes with wit and a deep knowledge of pop culture, which separates her from amateur, teenage writers’ attempts at creating pseudo-autobiographies of the lives of their closest friends. It Had To Be You is genuinely entertaining, if the reader is able to get past the fact that it will not fulfill any aspect of one’s life otherwise.

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In Haruki Murakami’s novel After Dark, Mari is a girl who, for her entire life, has lived unnoticed in her older, magazine modeling sister’s shadow. As a result, Mari has become increasingly independent, academic, and anti-social as her freshman year of college quickly approaches.

The two sisters have never been close, but Mari is finally starting to see that her older sister, Eri, may not be living the most glamorous life. Recently, Eri, has fallen into a coma-like sleep, only waking long enough to eat before falling back to sleep for days at a time. What is even more unusual is that since Eri’s deep sleep began, Mari cannot seem to find any sleep for herself, leaving her nothing else to do but wander the streets of Tokyo at night, seeking something to keep her occupied.

The entire novel of After Dark takes place between the hours of midnight and dawn.  During this time, Mari meets a string of strangers, all of them holding a key to the puzzle of the girl Mari is. Only by getting in touch with herself does Mari have any chance of finding out what happened to her sister and how to help her finally wake from her sleep for good.

After Dark, not ironically, takes on a dreamlike quality itself. The character of Mari often seems one-step removed from all the events taking place after midnight, as if she is merely an observer rather than an actress. Haruki Murakami transforms the city of Tokyo into a place where the lines between reality and dreams are blurred; leaving the reader with a sense of mystery long after the novel has been completed. But like in dreams, the characters are only vaguely aware that things are not the way they should be.

As with all Haruki Murakami novels, After Dark transcends genre classifications, pulling themes and motifs from multiple places. The reader will be immersed in aspects of horror, mystery, and a coming-of-age story that will stay with the reader like the most haunting of dreams, unlike those that simply vanish upon waking.r, Eri, may not be living the most glamorous life.

Recently, Eri, has fallen into a coma-like sleep, only waking long enough to eat before falling back to sleep for days at a time. What is even more unusual is that since Eri’s deep sleep began, Mari cannot seem to find any sleep for herself, leaving her nothing else to do but wander the streets of Tokyo at night, seeking something to keep her occupied.

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“If you like horror, you should go with Dean Koontz or Stephen King. If you’re in the mood for a little romance tonight, Nicholas Sparks will do the trick.”

Thanks, but no thanks. As I said before, I don’t want to take home just anyone. I’m looking for something new and refreshing. I don’t want to read a book that is constructed of the same writing formula as its authors last forty titles, and I don’t necessarily want to take home a book that has been used and abused by mostly everybody out there. I want something special.

That is why when I see the bright yellow cover of Miranda July’s No One Belongs Here More Than You, my world takes on that slow-motion clarity witnessed in movies. An eternity passes between the instant where my eyes first graze its title to when the two-hundred page book of short stories is held in my hand. It only took the first few pages to convince me that it was the reason I had come to the bookstore that night.

Miranda July is a fierce writer, one who will not hold back when others might. She is not afraid to place her readers in awkward situations and see how they behave. It is safe to say that I learned more about the human experience from these sixteen short stories than I would have from twenty of most author’s novels.

Most of her stories are written about relationships: family relationships, romantic relationships, even the subtle relationships of strangers. In her effort to thoroughly explore the function of why these relationships work, or more often don’t work, July delves into the deepest crevices and pushes through the thickest growth simply to observe.

In her pages the reader will witness the lustful, daydream relationship of two neighbors, the unhealthy, incestuous relationship of a father and daughter, and even the relationship of a woman and the house she is afraid to ever leave. In all of her stories, July knows that it is what is beneath the surface that matters, and where other writers would turn away or lightly brush upon, July, camera-like, brings such matters into glaring focus.

Her stories are not for everyone. She is not a safe read. Her stories are often vulgar in content, and will most likely change your perception of at least one aspect of your life. But, if you’re anything like me, all of these reasons just make her far more endearing.

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The plot follows the protagonist, Andrew, a confused twenty-three year old college graduate and Domino’s Pizza deliverer as he endeavors to cope with severe depression, the general rules of society and consumerism, resisting the sudden urges to go on a massive killing spree, and the loss of a love he cannot seem to leave behind. As depressing as the premise sounds, it, nevertheless, makes for a humorous read as nothing in this novel can be taken seriously, and it’s little over two-hundred pages are packed with a perfect mixture of clever metaphor, bitter irony, and absolute nonsense. This novel is, in a word, ridiculous.

Tao Lin is able to take the most ordinary and mundane instances of life and twist them into something extraordinary and new, if not exactly sensible. Although he receives criticism for his unconventional style, which he exercises simultaneously with breaking all the rules of writing, Lin knows exactly what he is doing, and he does it well. His numerous literary awards as well as the publications of bed, an anthology of short stories, as well as multiple poetry anthologies are a testimony to his competence as an upcoming writer, despite his young age of twenty-five.

In short, Eeeee Eee Eeee won’t teach the reader anything worthwhile about life, but its trippy, nonsensical imagery and abstract concepts will either leave the reader salivating for more or never wanting to look at a hamster, especially if that hamster happens to be depressed, again.

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