* (Salon doesn’t require registration, but it does feature the most irritating pop-up ads in the world.) We don’t say, “Pistols or swords?” anymore. But when you see a cold “Excuse me?” in print, you know it means the same thing. In this case, it’s Charles Taylor at Salon calling A S Byatt out on her Harry Potter diatribe. It’s a contradictory piece and Taylor trips over himself several times explaining why literary critics can love Harry (which is Popular But Good) without having to love Clive Cussler and company as well, but he does get in the occasional decent jab. “…For Byatt, as an academic as well as a novelist, the advent of cultural studies making their way into the sacred halls of academe is a betrayal. She may admit to loving Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances as a child, but now, my God, she has lived to see people actually reviewing Heyer. Heaven forfend.”