In our continuing efforts to ensure that everyone is reduced to the same level of illiteracy as that which we embrace, we present you with our weekly guide to sounding like you actually know about books. Gawker Intern Alexis weeds her way through the suffocating Sunday New York Times Book Review (now in week 2 of its Flashy Redesign That Looks Vaguely Familiar) to give you the best and worst of the reviews, all to further your success as a total and complete dilettante.

War Trash by Ha Jin
Reviewed by Russell Banks

Russell Banks makes like an overexcited puppy and pees all over himself in his effusive review of Ha Jin s War Trash. Despite getting off to a bumpy start with a clumsy first sentence so long we barely want to recount it— In reading Ha Jin s powerfully moving, War Trash, one might be forgiven for forgetting ([Ed: forgiven for forgetting ?! Ew.]) that it s a work of imaginative fiction and not a nonfiction account by an elderly Chinese man writing in fastidious, plain-spoken English of his years as a P.O.W. in United States and South Korean military prisons during the Korean War —Banks cleans up his act and keeps things simple throughout the rest of the review, superlative-dropping left and right. Banks ends things with quite the bang, claiming that, War Trash is not a large novel, but it is a nearly perfect one. And a nearly perfect suck-job, to boot!

Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? by Harold Bloom
Reviewed by Andrew Delbanco

All sexual harassment aside, Harold Bloom is a very important literary figure (especially now that Derrida is out of the picture) and looks like such a little teddy bear in the review s accompanying photograph that we just want to take his saggy jowl and jiggle it around a few times with our fingers. Andrew Delbanco gets a little hypocritical on us and claims that at times, Bloom seems a self-conscious performer brandishing literary props in a performance that is all about him. That s funny because Delbanco devotes half of the review s first paragraph (of a fairly short review) to a sentence that begins, It is a touching work that reminds me and then goes on to be reminded of a story well, all about himself. Delbanco, until you start saying things along the line of, with a face like yours you ll have no problem getting into my Shakespeare and the Canon class, you just can t pull shit like that.

The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty by Kitty Kelley
Reviewed by Ted Widmer

A bit on the late side—Kitty Kelley is a sorta mid-September, no?—Ted Widmer s review of the Bush dynasty tell-all doesn t really bring anything new to the table. Though Widmer sort of amazingly refers to the Malkovitch-portal of Skull and Bones, his other attempts at being funny or clever are less successful. On H.W., Widmer writes, Kelley fleshes out the picture considerably, adding scores of anecdotes, to paint a far more nuanced portrait than the prevailing memory, which many of us can barely separate from Dana Carvey s impersonation. Oh, SNAP! And how about, The word dynasty in Kelley s primogeniture (to say nothing of Joan Collins) may be premature Oh no you didn t, Widmer! And he ends the review with the highly un-illuminating, For all their shortcomings, the Bushes are now major figures in American history the 21st century will bear their stamp for a long time to come, from the Middle East to the Middle West. Is that a thump we just heard?

Author, Author by David Lodge
Reviewed by Sophie Harrison

It s bad enough that Lodge got totally scooped by Colm Tolbin, who also wrote a novel about Henry James last spring (which, unlike Lodge s version, was very well received), but Harrison goes on to reveal poor Lodge s deep insecurities about writing the novel in the first place. Forget about jiggling Harold Bloom s jowls, after reading Sophie Harrison s review, we just want to take Lodge into our arms and rock him back and forth while whispering Hush child, it ll be okay, into his wee ears.