Eric,

Mark Winegardner--this is just between you and me, please; I don't know who
your mutual friends are--has become, in the years since he began
publishing, boorish, vain, coarse, self-impressed to an unseemly degree,
and, in keeping with this general self-inflation, rather large.  The last
time he came to visit me I found myself longing for the hour or so to be
over, and biting my tongue much of the time.

He's master of the But-enough-about me-let's-talk-about-me school.

And he's a relentless, indefatigable, and shameless self-promoter.

So.  That's that.  Obviously, if you want to invite him, invite him.

Steven