I am usually disappointed when the interview part of NPR's Fresh Air show ends and the tail end commentary or review fills out the show's hour...except when Geoffrey Nunberg gives one of his little radio essays on language. For that reason I was eager to read this book, but I was frustrated to find that Going Nucular is simply a collection of those radio essays, with a few newspaper columns thrown in. I had heard most of what I was now reading, and since all of the essays were written since 2001, they were mostly fresh in my mind. Not that they weren't interesting, but they simply weren't new. I suspect other regular Fresh Air listeners will have a similar reaction. After finishing the book I scanned the cover and could not find any indication that the book was a collection of old essays, which I found sort of ironic being that the Nunberg is a communication expert.