Is there ever a good reason to use char over varchar in modern databases -- SQL Server, Oracle, etc?

I read in "SQL Performance Tuning" that char is only faster when inserting or updating, not selecting.

Thanks!

If the DBMS is Oracle then the answer is (almost) never use CHAR. Use VARCHAR2 all the time. I say almost only because there may be some someone who sometime has a requirement for exactly what CHAR does - i.e. always blank-padding out to the full length - but chances are, it won't be you or me.