In this week's edition of the Times Book Review, we ask Intern Alexis to go where no intern has gone before: scatology. (Okay, maybe some Gawker interns have gone "there," but we never had to actually ask.) There's only one book reviewer capable of pulling in Alexis with his poopy talk, and that Joe Queenan. After the jump, chocolate sausages and Frank Rich's Zadie Smith fetish.

On Beauty
 By Zadie Smith
Reviewed by Frank Rich

We lurve Zadie Smith and we understand that Frank Rich and the editors of the New York Times Book Review love her too, but we don't love her two-thirds of a page's worth! As Talan from Laguna Beach said to Taylor, "I love you... Well, I don't love you — I L-U-V you." This sums up how we feel about Zadie Smith's booming face on page 11 of the Review. This photo is too fucking big, dudes. She is beautiful, yes, but freaky-looking at such a high resolution! Also, the cover of the Book Review is hideous. What's irritating about said hideous cover (and last week's equally unimaginative cover) is that sometimes the covers are really nice! We're fine with mediocrity, but you have to be consistently mediocre, or else we get our hopes up, then we're let down, and then we start crying and then we start abusing our Excedrin supply. ANYWAY, we recently learned that Sam Tanenhaus makes $180,000 a year — pay your
creative directors more!


Class Matters
 By the Times posse
Reviewed by Alan Wolfe

We generally let it slide when books by New York Times reporters get glowing reviews in the New York Times Book Review. There's a reason they're Times reporters, they write books, sometimes they're good, &c. However, to review a book that is not so much a book as it is a whole bunch of Times articles, in this case, a collection of articles from the recent "Class Matters" series...well, that's just retarded. What does it mean, really, when the New York Times gives the New York Times a good review? That's like sleeping with your sister or something.


Fan-Tan
 By Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell
Reviewed by Joe Queenan

Is it just us, or is Joe Queenan's constant reviewing of celebrity vanity books getting a little old? The whole "it's amusing when idiot celebrities write stuff" thang that Queenan likes to harp on, well, frankly, stick a fork in us, we think we're done (with that). This week, he tackles Marlon Brando's posthumously published novel. Goody.

In the tradition of writing about stuff that he's written about before, Queenan recalls a scene in Fan-Tan when "the heroine has defecated on the hero's chest " Ha! Less funny, though, is when he goes on to recall this scene twice more! (" the aforementioned fecal interlude " " entirely unexpected bowel movements in unconventional romantic settings ") If there is one thing we learned in college, it's that the Dirty Sanchez loses its effect the more one discusses it, Queenan!