We’ll give Tanenhaus half a brownie point this week because it’s close to Xmas. This week’s NYTBR is a big mixed bag. We advise against the continued employment of Joe “I Never Met A Subject I Didn’t Hate” Queenan (along with the end of silly photo captions such as “Johnny Unitas of the Colts” asuming that educated folks aren’t familiar with football legend-team associations). But we dug the Truman Capote profile, which combined biography, light critical consensus and some naughty bits into a hot essay by the always excellent Daniel Mendelsohn.

However, Laura Miller needs to get out of the house more. We take pride in our dirty minds, pointing out that sexual suggestion and naughty jokes come with most of our book recommendations (some over the course of our lives, in flagrante delicto), while recommending that intercourse itself is best performed rather than endlessly talked about.