Anyone knows that you don't have to actually read to sound well-read—you just have to read book reviews. But what of these book reviews, so lengthy and boring and multitudinous? Allow us to help. In honor of the Times' newly-rehashed Book Review (font changes! Editor's picks!), Gawker intern Alexis proudly reviews the reviews for you. After the jump, her hot picks on the best and worst reviews of the week, plus choice quotes worth regurgitating at the even the most dreadful cocktail parties.

The Plot Against America
 By Philip Roth
Review by Paul Berman

Reading a Philip Roth novel is a bit like reading the words "Newark, Jews, childhood, Newark, Jews, childhood, Newark, Jews, childhood" over and over again. The same holds true for reading a review of a Philip Roth novel. Paul Berman takes up five pages of the NYTBR discussing Roth s newest ouevre, The Plot Against America, a look at a fantastical fascist America of the 1940s. And at what conclusions does Mr. Berman arrive? Roth purposefully leaves us hanging Roth has erected a giant and enigmatic symbol, whose meaning he will not define and in this terrific political novel, though in a style his readers might never have predicted the author has mythologized his own childhood. So, in sum: Berman likes thinking about Roth "erecting a giant and enigmatic symbol" (you don't have to be "literary" to understand that metaphor) and more Newark, Jews, childhood.
'The Plot Against America': What If It Happened Here?

The Know-It-All: One Man s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World.
 By A.J. Jacobs
Review by Joe Queenan

Mee-fucking-ow! Joe Queenan gets downright nasty in his review of Esquire editor A.J. Jacobs s The Know-It-All: One Man s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. Not only does he describe Jacobs as a poor man s Dave Barry; no, a bag person s Dave Barry but he goes on to call him a pedigreed simpleton. We can t help but wonder whether there s some sort of personal, underlying shit between the two lad mag hags going on here. Hey, aging Mr. Queenan, bitter that a younger version of yourself may be more successful than you ever were/will be? What? What? Did we just say that?
'The Know It All': A Little Learning Is A Dangerous Thing


The God of Driving: How I Overcame Fear and Put Myself in the Driver s Seat With the Help of a Good and Mysterious Man
 By Amy Fine Collins
Review by Pamela Paul

Pamela Paul finds alien-like socialite, Amy Fine Collins angsty memoir, a little bit like the author — thin and disjointed. She does concede though, that the reader may become enchanted with Collins glamorous lifestyle and that the reader may find herself longing for a customized Geoffrey Beene wardrobe and Bentley of her own. Her?!?! Pamela, honey, more like him — Amy Fine Collins is actually quite a major New York gay icon.
'The God Of Driving': Car Talk

The Surrendor: An Erotic Memoir
 By Toni Bentley
Review by Zoe Heller

Yikes. It s hard to even focus on Zoe Heller s review of Toni Bentley s ode to anal sex when there is a humongous, almost comedy sized photograph of Toni Bentley staring, come hither -ly, right at us. But even when we got beyond the photograph and actually read the review, we couldn t really focus, because we kept chuckling at Bentley and Heller s euphemisms for the dirty deed ( emancipation through the back door, anal episodes, Bentley s preferred sexual position," etc., etc.) What ever happened to the good, old-fashioned sticking it up the poop chute?
'The Surrender': Beauty Of Submission