It's only fitting that the NYTBR would use its first edition of the new year to point the spotlight on Sam Tanenhaus with his weekly column explaining that week's book review. While we could go on and on about how it's not necessarily a good sign if you feel compelled to elucidate forthcoming material before one reads the material itself, Intern Alexis is just happy for some much needed clarification. After the jump she gives thanks to Tanenhaus and puts Jersey in its place, all in her weekly guide to sounding like you'd know a book if you saw one.

Up Front
 By Sam Tanenhaus

Oh, Sam... You didn t... Gosh! I mean, wow, you really didn t have to... But thanks for the Chanukah present! Thank you so much for eliminating the goofy contributors page, which did nothing but make everyone s lives more difficult. Thank you for putting the contributors IDs where they belong, safely at the bottom of each review, so we don t have to dirty our delicate little fingers every time we forget who Laura Miller is. And lastly, thank you for deciding to pen a weekly column which "will elaborate on some of what s in the section," providing behind-the-scenes look at what went into putting together the Review. Nice! Can we look forward to tales of backroom deals involving Jonathan Franzen and Leisl Schillinger snorting cocaine off of Alice Munro s breast? We hope so!

Chronicle: Are you Ready for some Football?
 By Charles Salzberg

As we started reading Charles Salzberg s roundup of recent college football literature, we thought to ourselves, "We hate football." Then we felt a sharp pang of deja-vu run through our bodies because we remembered thinking the exact same thing a month ago, after reading Joe Queenan s roundup of pro-football literature. We understand that super, hardcore football fans make up a huge chunk of New York Times Book Review readers, but wait a minute...

Wrong Way: The Fall of Conrad Black
 By Jacquie McNish and Sinclair Stewart
Reviewed by Bryan Burrough

Bryan Burrough finds Jacquie McNish and Sinclair Lewis s Wrong Way: The Fall of Conrad Black to be an "engaging tale, well told" and calls George Tombs Lord Black a "truly bad biography." Within this review, two awesome things happen: Burrough refers to Conrad Black as an "It Girl" and he makes fun of Canada not once, but twice! ("What do you expect from Canada? Even its scandals are boring" and " Tombs has written a civil, polite, and circumspect book. You know, Canadian.") It s totally fine to make fun of Canada if you re from New York but Mr. Burrough, it turns out, is from New Jersey. And when you re from New Jersey, well, it s just not cool to make fun of Canada. Not cool at all. Also, we know that Lord Black is a big boy, but in this photo, standing beside to Lady Thatcher and Lord Carrington, he looks about 87 feet tall and is it just us, or does anyone else see the Big Moose resemblance?


The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair And Other Excursions and Observations
 By George Plimpton, Edited by Sarah Dudley Plimpton
Reviewed by Will Blythe

It has been over a year since George Plimpton passed away, but it s obviously too soon for Will Blythe to say anything even remotely negative about everyone s favorite "golden-mouthed fellow." But that s fine. We love George Plimpton and we love his golden mouth. However, we did a little math and discovered the word "Exeter" takes up .27% of the review. And that is .27% too much! Go Andover!