This week, the NYTBR sexes things up a bit with something we can all appreciate: Iranian hummers (politically sensitive and V-day appropriate)! Once Intern Alexis took a cold shower, she tackled the rest of the review, only to find that white-collar beasts have rendered the pages inaccessible to pleb readers. After the jump, her fight for class justice and musings on the evil of Jonathan Lethem.

In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran
By Christopher de Bellaigue
Reviewed by Pico Iyer

You may recall last week s Up Front column, in which the editors gave their illuminating explanation about what goes into the decision to excerpt a section of a book review on the front cover. It s a matter of feel said arbiter of sense and sensibility Tanenhaus. From the looks of this week s cover, it turns out that what Tanenhaus means by feel is not the vague, literary, guttish kind, but something more direct and a little further down. On the cover is this featured text: In the prosperous northern Tehran suburb of Elahiyeh, ladies who lunch visit a French-trained psychologist downtown get nose jobs, hang around the pizza parlor and perform oral sex on their boyfriends so they ll still technically be virgins when married off to their first cousins. Wowza! Sexxxy! Well, sort of. Flip to page 10, where Iyer informs us that This is the Iran of only a very, very few, of course, and de Bellaigue devotes only two dashing pages to it in his book. Ergo, the discussion of blowjobs only takes up two pages of this 283-page book. Ergo, it s a bit questionable then that the discussion of blowjobs takes up the whole front page of the NYTBR. Ergo, how do you say, sexing up the front page so that readers won t throw out the Book Review with the coupons in Latin?

Letters to the Editor

While we re taking a trip down memory lane, remember when David Moore asked, "Where are the letters from real readers? Rise up, readers..."? Well, judging from this week s letters page, it looks like rising up, the readers are not. The page is dominated by such fancypantsers as Columbia University history professor Eric Foner, Torture and Truth author Mark Danner, Harvard law professor and renowned criminal defense lawyer Alan M. Dershowitz, oh, and a short letter from the token some dude, Henry J. Friedman, MD. In an unprecedented personal revelation, we'll disclose that our red-tinted middle name is Foner—all the more reason why we encourage those literary masses to rise up and follow the lead of everyman Dr. Friedman and kick these bold-faced literati off of page 5! And if we had a job right now, we would totally go on strike!

The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History
By Peter Lamont
Reviewed by Teller

We have nothing but niceties to say about this review from Teller ("the shorter, quieter half of Penn and Teller"); he deftly takes on Peter Lamont s new book about the famous newspaper hoax involving a rope and a small Indian boy who is able to disappear into the sky. It was just our kind of review totally fucking obscure. Full of irrelevant information. No social significance whatsoever. But well written, amusing, and fun to read!

Just Saying: Weekly Musings From The Mind Of An Intern

· Kathryn Harrison and Sophie Harrison (who don't seem to be related!?) have reviews right next to each other! It s a veritable Harrison PARTY.
· Four of this week s book reviewers are either New York Times writers or editors. Bigwigs take over the letters page! Insiders snaffle all the big reviews! The common man languishes...
· It is now official: Jonathan Lethem has pussy-whipped the Gray Lady. Joe Klein, while discussing how there are some authors who lay claim to certain New York neighborhoods, ethnic groups or moments (for example, Edith Wharton owns high society in the gilded age; Henry Roth has the Lower East Side), writes that Jonathan Lethem has captured a significant patch of Brooklyn. Okay Lethem, you took Dean Street, the street I grew up on, so now I can never write my great, coming-of-age-in-Boerum Hill memoir (whoa! Someone took their over-sharing pills this morning!). Why don t you just go ahead and take the whole fucking borough? And while you re at it, why don t you just take my soul, my first-born son and my lunch money?