“Grant, whose only literary claim to fame had been playing a bookseller in ‘Notting Hill,’ confessed that he felt like a student back at Oxford University when put under pressure to read the finalists for the Whitbread Book of the Year award. Asked if he felt insulted by critics who argue it is dumbing down to choose celebrity judges for big literary awards, he told Reuters at Tuesday’s awards ceremony: ‘It is not insulting to me. I am very dumb as everyone knows’.”