Perhaps this is cruel, or petty, but I think it needs saying. Rather often, actually, because we have here one of those incomprehensibly inflated reputations that the world is better off for deflating.

If NPR is the Promised Land of high-brow book publicity, what do you call an author who snags not one shot at public radio’s upscale, book-loving audience, but a recurring gig to talk about a book that he hasn’t even written yet?

Listen, if NPR is the Promised Land of highbrow anything at all, what to call some author is the least of our problems. (Not to mention the slight oxymoron of ‘highbrow’ [what an obnoxious word] publicity, but never mind that.) NPR (the US’s National Public Radio, that is) is about as highbrow as ‘Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?’. People here only think it’s ‘highbrow’ because everything else on the radio is so much worse. But that is setting a pitifully low standard! NPR insults all our intelligences every time it opens its mouth. Highbrow, indeed! It’s about as highbrow as Fox is fair and balanced.