Not long ago, a former colleague of mine turned up her nose when I mentioned that I was enthralled in the middle of George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" saga. That really irritated me. Martin pulls off some very intricate, psychologically deep scenes, but all this snotty person could think of were the dragons and longswords. Jil Hoffmann's post goes to the heart of the issue -- do we really know what we're talking about when we refer to "serious" literature? -- in her post about Patricia Highsmith. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.