The Post-Birthday World
Goblin Market
The Secret History
We Need to Talk About Kevin
The Hours
Dogs of Babel
Atonement
Autobiography of a Face / Truth and Beauty

It's even more fun on Sundays when there's a relay sausage race in which the adult sausage racers pass off the baton to kids in sausage costumes. It's pretty cute, unless you're a curmudgeon who also hates sunshine and happiness.

Three cheers for the Brewers! The only downer right now is Brian Anderson's extended absence. Lepay is doing a fine job, but my nerd crush on BA is insatiable.

Madison is more liberal than the rest of the state, save perhaps for Milwaukee. The politics of this state are confounding. We've elected Scott Walker and Barack Obama twice. We have Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin as our senators.

You are a brave soul. The comments section of my local newspaper just makes me sad.

Not making it into grad school can have has much to do with the department's funding for the upcoming year as it does with the applicant pool. Don't take it personally.

Seriously? That sucks. Kids bite. That's a typical developmental stage…unless your daughter is 15. My son was bitten badly once at day care; it happens. Hope today turns into a better day.

Seems like a major TV event, and I was surprised to not read about it yesterday or today on AVC.

Ugh, yes. To right that wrong, I'm reading The Conflict this time around. The universe now feels right.

I used to work at a small, religious, very conservative university in the middle of nowhere. Young conservatives are out there, and they're doing just fine. And I was at a third-tier school—these were not brilliant minds or future lawyers or trust fund kids.

I can't do another season of Yunie B and Juan Francisco at first base.

I suppose season one's Amber would be a worse choice.

I thought the first act was really strong, the second act was good, and the third was terrible. Flynn's books have always seemed this close to being really good, so I'm excited for the rewrite. The last third of the book was straight up soap opera.

I, too, skip quite a few article types. And I'm still six weeks behind. My dad got me a subscription to Consumer Reports, so now I can fall behind on another weekly periodical. My tv watching has gone to shit, too. What am I doing with my time??

I'm still working my way through Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. I'm around 450 pages in, so hopefully I can finish it this month. I'm also six weeks behind in The New Yorker. I do have a three-hour appointment at the doctor's office/lab this Friday, so I'll probably get through…half a magazine.

I'm surprised The Bridge didn't get more love, in either the honorable mentions or the comments. It definitely wasn't the best new show of the year, but I think that reflects the crop of new shows rather than any fault of The Bridge. I'm really excited for Season 2.

I think the combination of the length of The Goldfinch and its release date makes it understandable that it was left off the list. This is their busy season—site redesign, year-end lists, and fall finales—and book reviews aren't they're full-time focus. I give this one a pass, though I, too, would put it on my…

Two of Shriver's books are on my Best Books Ever list (We Need to Talk about Kevin and The Post-Birthday World), but I'm not tempted to read Big Brother. I did read a profile of Shriver in the New Yorker about her relationship with her brother and his death, which made me slightly more receptive to the book, but I'm…

I tried (and failed) to disguise my laughter as a cough.

No, apparently we are the lowest common denominator, according to several commenters above. Thanks, internet friends!