In this week's edition of her unwavering Times Book Review coverage, Intern Alexis discovers that Mnookin, the surname of Hard News author Sethelah, is a verb. To mnookin someone, we learn, is to charmingly crush one's self-esteem and, if executed properly, said victim's will to live, with a deft move of the mnookiner's stiletto. After the jump, exemplary mnooking on reviewer Nora Krug, modern language rapes the memory of Queen Isabella, and we all take a trip to over-hyphenation station.

The latest Times Book Review is just plain pissy (don't you go calling it the Gawker-ization of the Review; we just won't have you insulting them like that), and it's got Intern Alexis feeling a little down. There's hardly any haterade to spare, what with the heaping piles of nasty being unloaded on the careers of Benjamin Kunkel, Wendy Lesser, and Simon Winchester. Naturally, it's Joan Didion who lifts Intern Alexis above the fray so that she might write this week's recap without short-circuiting her laptop with her own tears. After the jump, her weekly review.

In this week's installment of her review of the Times Book Review, Intern Alexis gets a much-deserved respite from the literary scatology that's permeated the Review's pages as of late. Nevertheless, she's still forced to deal with another sort of crap: Lauren Weisberger's latest contribution to the pyre of chick-lit, which is enough to make Candace Bushnell seem like a blessing. After the jump, miracles happen.

You thought that after last week's feces-soaked edition of the Times Book Review, things couldn't get any worse. It's hard to imagine the Gray Lady as a sexy scatological freak — but, sadly, it seems that She might be exactly that. After the jump, Intern Alexis goes back to Pooville so you don't have to.

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.

In her weekly review of the Times Sunday Book Review, Intern Alexis goes where no sane person hath ever gone before: Deep into the letter-writing mind of Donald Trump, where writer Joe Queenan dines at an all-you-can-eat blowjob buffet. It's enough to make poor Alexis lose her mind; her one-on-one dialogue with The Donald follows.

Intern Alexis goes spelunking into the depths of this week's Times Book Review and, in turn, comes up with a big basket of Rachel Donadio. One has to wonder if Donadio has actually taken to washing editor Sam Tanenhaus' dirty bed linens, just to ensure her weekly shout-outs in the Up Front section. Meanwhile, Ralph Nader gives Bruce Springsteen a run for his letter-writing money, forcing Richard Posner to take a time-out in the naughty corner for his news media abortion/essay. All this, plus the frightening thought of The Collected Emails of Dave Eggers, after the jump.

We hate it when emails from our boss about something we've published start anything like this:

After nearly a year of thankless slavery (no, seriously, we don't even thank her for doing shit), Intern Alexis finally receives a small nibble of vindication in this week's Times Book Review, in the form of an acknowledgment of our existence from A.O. Scott. It doesn't even have much to do with, well, anything, but whatever it takes to get you out of bed, right? Moving onward, we find Rachel Donadio has moved about the food chain (although we're unsure which direction) and, get this, hipsters are greasy. All that, plus fun with madlibs, after the jump.

• Murdoch Family Feud: It's all about control. [NYT]
• Bad news on Posner's NYTBR "Bad News." [Slate]
• NYT, NYTimes.com to fully integrate newsrooms. [Romenesko]
• LAT media writer David Shaw dies at 62. (Gawker's earlier thoughts on Shaw.) [LAT]

This week in the Times Book Review, resident bitch Joe Queenan seems to think so and goes so far as to declare Geraldo Rivera as more compelling than Hillary Clinton. Blasphemy! Once Intern Alexis finishes researching Queenan's hidden past, she touches herself with excitement over a letter to the Review from Bruce Springsteen. Rounding out the emotional rollercoaster is a teary look at Harry Potter, served with a shot of vodka. Alexis' review follows.

The Times Book Review sure is on a roll: After last week's vagtastic review of all things mildly inappropriate, editor Tannenhaus keeps us drenched in intellectual salsa by taking on fatties, sex, and the worth of rock critics. Intern Alexis could barely keep her bladder in one piece. Her weekly review follows.

And by love, we mean the Times Book Review, which sets the stage for an overly precious round of meta-ironic bitching, sent from Dave Eggers to Neal Pollack with love. Once Intern Alexis gets past that load of eye-rolling, she's on to more of the same from Review editor Sam Tanenhaus, who wants you to know that sentences are for artistic appreciation, not understanding. That's the only way, anyhow, that we can explain his invocation of every Jew since Moses to Rocco Ritchie as part of national myth-building. Yeah, we don't get it either, but Intern Alexis at least pretends to understand. After the beloved jump, her weekly guide to acting like you'd know a book if it bit you on the ass.

If you're not too distracted by the digitally enhanced cleavage of Washingtonienne, you might actually find some words in this week's Times Book Review. And those words, according to Intern Alexis, are good if only because they're biased. After the jump, Alexis' weekly round-up of books you'll never read but should pretend you have, in which Michael Cunningham gets gently bent over and Jessica Cutler gets treated as if she were a real writer.

This week s Times Book Review was very much The Week After the Summer Reading Issue issue. A little thin. A little lazy. And, in her regular review of the reviews, Intern Alexis takes her cue from Sam Tanenhaus — even laggard imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all. After the jump, your weekly guide to sounding as if you've at least touched a piece of newsprint in the past week.

Neal Pollack makes a startling — startling — confession in the Times Book Review: He lives in the shadow of his persona. Despite his arrogant posturing as the "World's Greatest Living Writer," Neal Pollack is but a mere mortal, a human being, a man who feels pain at the hand of his literary alter-ego and is but a mere victim of the McSweeney's literary machine. Tears of clown, yadda yadda. This sort of "I'm a human being, brother," is familiar ground for Pollack.

We actually went with the above hed because, really, how often do we get to write about Alan Dershowitz and lesbians?

It's funny: For all the instances we joke about being too drunk or hungover to write, we only mean it, say, 30% of the time. If we were actually as wasted as we say we are, we certainly wouldn't be up at sunrise to write some blog. Today, however, is special: Intern Alexis got so shitfaced on Saturday night that this week's review of the New York Times Book Review is flecked with bile and verbal diarrhea. We're running it, if only so she learns her lesson about the dangers of keg stands. After the jump, Alexis does her best to control the spins.

In this week's review of the New York Times Book Review, Intern Alexis comes to the defense of Everything Bad Is Good For You and, in the process, manages to reprint an IM conversation about The O.C. finale. We let her keep it in the final copy, purely out of respect for Trey and admiration for Marissa's solid gunplay. After the jump, Alexis explores NASCAR and pop culture in her review for the common man.

Last week, we gave Intern Alexis a week's vacation from the Times Book Review; she spent last Sunday and Monday as a civilian, enjoying her days simply as Alexis and nothing more. Always a glutton for punishment, however, Alexis returned to us "ready to work." But, finding it far more difficult to get back into the swing of things than she had anticipated, our little Lexi could only write with the stream of her consciousness. We dare you to follow. After the jump, we insert the paragraph breaks while Intern Alexis does her best James Joyce.