Line #50 SeriousBusiness/Literature


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6	SeriousBusiness in {{Literature}}.
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8	* ''Literature/The39Clues'' are Serious Business for all four branches of the Cahill family. Although seeing as the prize for finding all 39 is [[spoiler: super strength, intelligence, creativity and strategy skills]] that could grant you world domination... well, the way all the characters take it seriously doesn't seem too farfetched.
9	* In ''Literature/AlanMendelsohnTheBoyFromMars'', the kids at Bat Masterson Junior High quickly divide themselves into two opposing belligerent factions: one that believes Alan really is a Martian, and another that disbelieves the same. The principal blames Alan for starting the riot and has him suspended for a week.
10	* Johnathan Rand's ''Literature/AmericanChillers'' features the book ''Oklahoma Outbreak'', in which a zombie outbreak occurs in a school. The inciting disease? '''''Cooties'''''.
11	* ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' does this with almost everything relating to appearances -- the book commonly spends about half a page of every chapter just listing the clothing, perfume and other brands of status symbols (such as watches) Bateman and his colleagues are wearing at that moment. If you actually know the individual articles of clothing being described, you'd know that [[GeniusBonus they'd look ridiculous together]].
12	* In ''Literature/AncillaryJustice'':
13	** The Radchai give great significance to tea and gloves. Gloves in particular are seen as something akin to underwear; playing a violin in public is a somewhat risque activity since you need gloves so thin they might as well not be there.
14	** In the second book, the soldier Kalr Five takes tea sets very seriously, insisting early in the book an acquiring multiple high quality tea sets (some over a thousand years old) to display her captain's prestige. The beauty of the second and third best tea sets are remarked upon several times over the book and the ''best'' tea set is only brought out near the end of the book when [[spoiler: Breq finally reconciles with Banassid]].
15	* ''Literature/ArlyHanks'': In ''Muletrain to Maggody'', some of the Civil War re-enactors are so intensely devoted to their hobby (some would say ''obsession'') that they deliberately collect welts and blisters from overly-stiff boots, drink contaminated creek water to contract historically-accurate diarrhea, and incur 2nd degree sunburns while stubbornly playing dead, all in the name of "not being a farb". One would've sworn off dentistry for that just-two-teeth-left-and-they're-blackened-stumps look, had his wife not threatened divorce.
16	* In ''Literature/BookOfBrownies'', the three brownies ends up trapped in a place called the Land of Clever People, whose denizens -- and visitors -- must speak in ''[[RhymesOnADime rhyme, all the time]]''. Getting caught speaking in a normal manner is punishable by ''public spanking''.
17	* In ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' (and its [[TheFilmOfTheBook two film adaptations]]), the Golden Ticket contest quickly becomes a global obsession, to the point that in the 1971 film, a news reporter says this:
18	-->[W]e must remember there are more important things, ''many'' more important things. ({{Beat}}) Offhand, I can't think of what they are, but I'm sure there must be something.
19	** Along with many other moments such as kidnappers wanting a case of Wonka Bars as ransom for a man's life. The wife needs to ''think about it'' (just after tearfully saying they could have anything if they just gave him back). The police officer who told her the terms at least had the good sense to [[OnlySaneMan be disturbed by her reluctance.]]
20	** The sweets Willy Wonka produces are ''incredibly'' serious business, as they are ImpossiblyDeliciousFood. He had to shut down his factory for a time because of corporate espionage (and spies selling secrets to his competitors), and the fact that he was able to get it up and running again without workers ever entering or exiting the building only added to his LivingLegend status. This is why the Golden Tickets are so coveted -- everyone wants to see ''how he does it''. As it turns out, Wonka himself has extremely SkewedPriorities as he takes the Golden Ticket finders through his factory; he's more concerned with his sweets than the fates of misbehaving members of the group. (The primary reason he will ensure that Augustus Gloop won't be turned into fudge is because "the taste would be terrible" if he were.)
21	* In ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo'', potential newspaper errors are very serious business. Two people nearly died because one believed that a story was incorrect. However, this is TruthInTelevision, as people really did take public opinion that seriously.
22	* ''Creator/DaveBarry in Cyberspace'' has a legal contract for "unconditionally and irrevocably" giving someone else a stick of chewing gum.
23	* In ''Literature/DaveBarrySleptHere'', the author calls UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution "the single most important historical event ever to occur in this nation except for Super Bowl III (Jets 16, Colts 7. This historian won $35)." Likewise, in describing the major world events of October 1962, the World Series takes precedence over the Cuban missile crisis.
24	* ''Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKid'':
25	** Toilet paper for the students at Greg's school. One candidate for student council president didn't bother campaigning at all and his entire speech was him promising to make the school replace the regular toilet paper with the quilted kind. He won the election by a landslide. It's decided that, since the school doesn't have enough money to replace the toilet paper, kids can bring in their own from home. The kids bring in so much of it, they have to carry bags of the stuff to class with them because it wouldn't fit in their lockers.
26	** ''Dog Days'': Senior citizens are obsessed with a newspaper comic called ''Precious Poochie''. The series is over fifty years old and the creator died a long time ago, but the newspaper keeps recycling it despite the jokes and references being extremely outdated and not understood by younger viewers (the shown comic was made during the time phonograph devices were recently invented). The reason for this is because if removing it was ever attempted, large mobs of seniors would protest outside the building and not leave until it was put back in. Greg theorizes that this is likely because the seniors think of Poochie as their own dog. It's also the reason why the newspaper company doesn't take any new animal or pet-themed comics, fearing that the seniors will protest about the new comics either being a ripoff or trying to steal Poochie's thunder.
27	* In Creator/TerryPratchett's Literature/{{Discworld}}:
28	** Parodied in ''Literature/InterestingTimes'', when Cohen realizes that the Agatean Empire's obsession with tradition (such as the tea ceremony) is part of the reason it has stagnated. He starts the winds of change by telling his new Grand Vizier (a man unsuited to the job, who will therefore be much better at it than the previous incumbent) that there's a ''new'' tea ceremony, and it doesn't take three hours, because it goes like this: "Tea up, luv. Milk? Sugar? Scone? You want another?"
29	** ''Literature/GoingPostal'' features Stanley Howler, who takes pins Very Seriously Indeed, and is regarded as "a bit weird about pins" [[EvenNerdsHaveStandards even by other pin collectors.]] When stamps are invented, he gets over it and goes crazy about stamps instead. He is promptly appointed to be in charge of the stamp department of the Post Office.
30	** Jeremy Clockson from ''Literature/ThiefOfTime''. He ''assaulted'' one of his fellow clock-makers for deliberately setting a clock ahead a few minutes. "A clock that's wrong is... ''wrong''." [[spoiler:He's the son of Time, an AnthropomorphicPersonification, and is set to take over from her.]]
31	** ''Literature/UnseenAcademicals'' tackles (no pun intended) this with regards to association football. Justified in that a bequest to Unseen University means that not playing football will lose the wizards most of their food money. (And for [[BigEater the wizards]], food has ''always'' been serious business.) It becomes even more justified when [[MagnificentBastard Lord Vetinari]] decides to use the football match to break the power of the football gangs that are becoming a major disruptive influence in the city. While it is Serious Business to the common hooligans, to the "faces" of the Shove this is a direct attack on their political power base.
32	** Miscellaneous: ''The Fool's Guild''. They treat comedy as deadly serious; they won't tell a joke until it's spent years being dissected in review by the guild masters, funerals are conducted with the whole custard-down-the-pants business treated with the same grave solemnity of a eulogy, and they have ''weaponized slapstick gags for serious combat''. On top of that, any character who is a jester, clown, fool, or other idiotic-looking joculator, automatically gets the trope HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood applied to him. Yes, even if he's just an incidental character whose past never comes up. They're so indoctrinated that they consider their greasepaint makeup to be their true face, and said faces can be inherited down the family line. Copies of the faces are made on eggshells to ensure no one accidentally uses a face assigned to someone else. (BTW, this is TruthInTelevision. Check [[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00119253.1967.10545612 this]] out.) Using someone else's face, especially on purpose, is viewed as being roughly equal to murder.
33	* ''Literature/DonQuixote'': Serious Business is one of the principal themes of the novel: The first part, only Don Quixote is affected with the chivalry lifestyle, but in the second part, a sizable portion of Spain's population takes it far more seriously than it should be. There are various examples:
34	** InUniverse:
35	*** '''Don Quixote''': The very last stage of Alonso Quixano obsession with chivalry books and the first stage of his true madness (and also to show exactly how out of touch with reality he really is: Part I, Chapter I shows us how important are the chivalry books for him: ([[BetrayalTropes Ganelon]] was the guy who betrayed [[Literature/TheSongOfRoland Roland at Roncesvalles]] and who becomes, with [[Myth/ArthurianLegend Mordred]] and [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} Judas]], one of the great exemplars of treachery for the mediæval period).
36	---->''"To have a bout of kicking at that traitor of a Ganelon he would have given his housekeeper, and his niece into the bargain."''
37	*** '''The Duke and the Duchess:''' They spent a lot of money and organize truly massive scam (Dulcinea’s enchantment has all the people in their castle, the Insula Barataria involucres all the people of a town) only to laugh at Literature/DonQuixote and Sancho.
38	%%* Beer brewing takes on mythical proportions in ''Literature/TheDrawingOfTheDark'' by Creator/TimPowers.
39	* ''Double Whammy'' by Creator/CarlHiaasen revolves around the cut-throat world of professional bass fishing. The protagonist is a private detective investigating the recent death of a die-hard fisherman in an apparent accident. The detective's fishing guide, a local hermit, says the detective isn't going to make any headway in the case until he wraps his head around the fact that for some men, catching bass is literally BetterThanSex: ''"Put 'em on a good bass lake at dawn and they get ''hard''."''
40	* ''Literature/EarthCentAmbassador'': "Trader/Raider", the hot new MMORPG virtual reality video game in ''Alien Night on Union Station''. Once a team led by Earth Ambassador Kelly [=Frank-McAllister=]'s stepson develops a reputation in the game-verse, she starts getting approached by aliens for alliances who think [=EarthCent=] is trying to use the game for an InternationalShowdownByProxy. Kelly, not a gamer herself, thinks the idea is incredibly silly.
41	* Lynne Truss's ''[[Literature/EatsShootsAndLeaves Eats, Shoots & Leaves]]'' is a book entirely about [[GrammarNazi Grammar Wank]], focused on the misuse of ''punctuation''. You don't get any more serious than that.
42	* Conor Kostick's novel ''[[Literature/TheAvatarChronicles EPIC]]'' is a kind of satire of this tendency. It focuses on a group of far-future colonists using a sword and sorcery {{M\|assivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame}}MORPG as a system of government. Also, their economy is based around it too - a player's in-game money is their real world money, thus leading to players spending most of their free time grinding lowest level monsters (since they dare not risk invoking the games permanent character death system). Not only is their world slowly stagnating, but the Serious Business manner everyone plays the game in is poisoning it to the point that [[spoiler:the games AI wants to be put down. By the end of the story, this results in the destruction of the game world, all its beauty and possibility wasted - an implicit end result of uncontrolled Serious Business.]]
43	* In ''Literature/TheFountainhead'', the public views architecture with a fervor combining the World Series, the Super Bowl, the World Cup match, and whatever the Kardashians did last night.
44	* ''Literature/TheGlassBeadGame'' by Creator/HermannHesse features the eponymous game. There are universities devoted to it which appear to be the only way to get a tertiary education and the study of the game takes over people's lives as if they were joining a religious order.
45	** Since the Glass Bead Game (which isn't really a game) is essentially the synthesis of all art and knowledge, and has replaced art, it actually is serious business.
46	* In Mervyn Peake's ''Literature/{{Gormenghast}}'' (and its BBC mini-series adaptation), the Rituals take up the Earl of Groan's days, but the meanings of the gestures -- things like scratching a mark of the proper length on the back of a door on a specific metal cabinet with a knife of the proper mark -- have been lost in the dust of the castle's long history. Doesn't stop the Earl's secretary from being a stickler for doing things just so, and eventually drives the seventy-seventh earl, a mere child when he comes into his title, to make numerous escape attempts.
47	* In ''Literature/GulliversTravels'', the nations of Lilliput and Blefiscu are engaged in a war over which end to open a hard-boiled egg, the wide end or the narrow end. The question also led to civil wars in Lilliput itself; Gulliver is told that "eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break eggs at the smaller end". Swift intended this as a [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything not-so-subtle satire]] of both the schism between Catholic and Protestant Christians and the rivalry between England and France.
48	* Quidditch in the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series is treated as such, especially the matches between Hogwarts houses. It's roughly as popular as baseball or soccer/football is to Muggles. It helps that the book follows a Quidditch-keen hero with an equally Quidditch-mad best friend (and girlfriend/wife). Harry even refers to Quidditch as "serious business" in a non-ironic manner in the [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince sixth book]].
49	** Hermione, who doesn't get Quidditch, is left entirely confused when her perfectly reasonable arguments (like Quidditch causing needless tensions and bad feelings between Houses) are greeted with incomprehension, disgust or horror.
50	** And then there's Oliver Wood, Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, whose greatest defining character trait is ''winning that Hogwarts Quidditch Cup''. When Harry's GameBreaker Firebolt is confiscated to be stripped down for potential sabotage, he's entirely bewildered that his argument of "who cares if Harry gets thrown off as long as he's holding the Snitch when it happens" doesn't get the broom returned. After losing an important match, Fred and George joke that he's suicidal.
51	** Have you ever opened ''Literature/QuidditchThroughTheAges''? America has their own sport, Quodpot. Quidditch is just THE British/Scottish Sport, and it is played worldwide and is held in great honor. Also, Quidditch is taken to a higher extreme with Japan's Toyohashi Tengu- ''they'' burn their brooms if they lose a match.
52	* ''Manga/HybridXHeartMagiasAcademyAtaraxia'': Since the inhabitants of [[LadyLand Batlantis]] are rather sexually liberated, wear really revealing outfits, and tend to shed them for rituals and orgies, they treat public hair as serious business. They have professional groomers to trim and style their pubic hair and sometimes have competitions for the most beautiful bush. They also make fun of people who completely shave their pubic hair by comparing them to children.
53	* In ''Literature/TheIrregularAtMagicHighSchool'', magicians have a highly militaristic culture that places great emphasis on strength. Yet they're rarely allowed to ''use'' their incredible powers because of the risk of exposing their Clan's secrets, killing {{Muggles}}, or destabilizing the fragile status quo left by TheWarJustBefore. There is only ''one'' event in which magicians can show off the spells they've been practicing all their lives: the Nine Schools Competition, which is technically a sports tournament but really a necessary outlet for dozens upon dozens of teenage rivalries. God help you if you try to sabotage it.
54	* In ''Literature/TheKingdomKeepers'' Finn knows an impostor is posing as WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse because he was talking to a guest. "Talks... to... them? Mickey ''never'' spoke."
55	* In the novel ''Literature/TheKiteRunner'' kite fighting is portrayed a little like this, except not all year long. Apparently true.
56	* In ''Literature/TheMachineriesOfEmpire'', calendar is ''really'' serious business, to the point of people being labeled heretics and tortured if they don't celebrate the state-mandated holidays. Understandable - it's a foundation of the setting's FunctionalMagic and {{Magitek}}.
57	* ''Literature/MagistellusBadTrip'': The story is about a virtual reality game called ''Money (Game) Master''. It has considerable influence on the real world, with its virtual currency of Snow rivalling the dollar or yen in value. There are basically no rules in-game, so players freely kill each other for profit.
58	* ''Literature/MartinFierro'': This example was somewhat based in RealLife: When the book was written, to sing with a guitar was one of the only pleasures poor people could afford, so at the very beginning of his book, Martin Fierro declares that he has come to this life to sing, that he will sing until he dies and that singing will give him glory. He is great at poetry, at improvisation and at music. In the second part of the book, there will be more characters who sing about the story of their lifes, and the ending shows us a [[DuelsDecideEverything duel between singers that prefigures a duel to the death]].
59	* In ''The Mensa Quizbook'', Victor Sebriakoff says golfers regard the game like this, giving as an example the story of two fanatical golfers who were playing a round when a funeral procession went past. The one who was losing stopped playing and doffed his hat, forcing the other player to do likewise. This disruption totally threw the winning player off his game, and he lost. Furious, he told the other player that this was the worst piece of bad sportsmanship he'd ever seen, it was clearly deliberate, and he never wished to play golf with him again. The other man said apologetically that he quite understood, and all he could offer in defence was that he'd been married to the deceased for thirty years.
60	* In the Luna colonist society presented in ''Literature/TheMoonIsAHarshMistress'', the men outnumber the women two-to-one and so chivalry is Serious Business. Laying so much as a finger on a woman [[DisproportionateRetribution usually results]] in the offender being ThrownOutTheAirlock, ''even'' if said woman is beating the man black and blue beforehand. Harming a woman is one of the worst crimes you could possibly commit. [[spoiler:So when a bunch of Earth Peace Dragoons posted there to pacify the place rape and murder a Luna woman, the men of Luna react... quite badly.]]
61	* ''Literature/NationalLampoonsDoon'': In this AffectionateParody of ''Literature/{{Dune}}'', beer stands for the Spice, and leads to just as much murder and political mayhem. The EvilPlan of the Harkonnen stand-in is to sell watered down beer to the whole galaxy.
62	* ''Literature/NickVelvet'': In the "The Theft of the Sherlockian Slipper", two murders occur over possession of the ultimate piece of Literature/SherlockHolmes memorabilia: [[spoiler:the key to Watson's dispatch box in Cox & Co. bank]].
63	* In ''Literature/TheNutcrackerAndTheMouseKing,'' the backstory hinges on the fact that the king ''really'' likes sausages, to the point that he's basically having a panic attack from his feast not having enough fat (a fact which his guests don't seem to notice). Likewise, the queen responds by throwing herself at his feet, hysterically explaining that it's Queen Mouserick's fault before outright fainting.
64	* In ''Literature/PaleGreyDot'', [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Dilton Rowe]] takes his trains very seriously.
65	--> "This isn’t Earth, Captain. You don’t just”—Rowe swept his hand dismissively—“swap trains willy-nilly."
66	* ''Literature/ThePhantomTollbooth'' has everyone in the Kingdom of Knowledge being incredibly defensive and vocal about what bit of knowledge they specialize in. ''The entire kingdom'' was split between two brothers, one who thought words and letters were superior to numbers, and the other who thought vice versa. [[LampshadeHanging Summed up by the main character saying]], "Everyone's so terribly sensitive about what they know best".
67	* The board game of Azad in [[Creator/IainBanks Iain M. Banks]]'s ''Literature/ThePlayerOfGames'' is so complex and wide-ranging it resembles life. The entire structure of the interstellar Empire of Azad is informed and held together (and named after) the game, used to settle commercial, military, societal and other disputes. The winner of the great tournament is made Emperor. Playing Azad is ''very'' Serious Business. This is a reference to ''Literature/TheGlassBeadGame'' by Hermann Hesse, in which the game really does exactly mirror life itself.
68	* In ''Literature/RainbowDashAndTheDaringDoDoubleDare'', Rainbow Dash regards a double dare from Wild Fire as particularly serious.
69	* ''Literature/TheRapeOfTheLock'' is a merciless mocking of what was, at the time, real life Serious Business. In essence: Some guy cuts a lock of hair from a woman's head, which is treated as being as serious as, well, rape. Why did he commit this heinous act? Because of another piece of Serious Business: she beat him at cards.
70	* ''Literature/ReignOfTheSevenSpellblades'': PlayedForLaughs in volume 2. Sword arts is important anyway because it's literally life or death for mages, but there turns out to also be a significant InUniverse FandomRivalry over the three main sword styles: [[LikeBrotherAndSister Oliver and Chela]] get into a fairly significant argument over whether Pete should switch to the Rizett Style (Chela) or stick with Lanoff (Oliver). [[TakeAThirdOption Nanao offers to teach him instead but is shouted down]], and Guy suggests they instead try collaborating on teaching him fundamental elements of tactics that are common to all the styles.
71	* Creator/JulesVerne's ''Literature/RoburTheConqueror'' has the Weldon Institute of Philadelphia, a society of aeronautics nerds obsessed with proving that balloons are better than heavier-than-air flying machines.
72	* Creator/DrSeuss:
73	** ''Literature/TheButterBattleBook'' is a clear parody of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar and accompanying Soviet/U.S. arms race. The issue that caused the division and started the whole thing off? Which side of the bread is buttered.
74	** In ''The Zax'', two creatures refuse to step even a single inch to the side to let the other move on; the creatures remain standing, toe-to-toe, for the rest of eternity.
75	** Finally, as a swipe at prejudice, the Sneetches spend all their money adding and removing stars from their bellies so they won't look like the other side. This is a satirization of how racism is idiocy, so maybe it really ''is'' Serious Business after all.
76	** A more lighthearted example occurs in ''Scrambled Eggs Super''. Peter T. Hooper is so determined to perfect his scrambled egg recipe that he and his hired help go to the ends of the earth, to dangerous and exotic locales, and fight off fierce birds to find the best quality eggs.
77	%%* Literature/SherlockHolmes fandom does this with The Game.
78	* Creator/CatherineAsaro's ''Literature/SkolianSaga'' novels ''The Last Hawk'' and ''A Roll of the Dice'' describe a world run by a game of dice called Quis. In ''The Ruby Dice'', the game gets bigger...
79	* Creator/NealStephenson:
80	** In ''Literature/SnowCrash'', the whole first section is mock-heroic and elevates ''[[MundaneMadeAwesome pizza delivery]]'' as serious business. Electronic timers are placed on each pizza box from the very ''second'' the order is placed, and should the [[ThirtyMinutesOrItsFree thirty minute timer]] expire then... well, what happens next begins with the owner of the pizza company personally visiting the wronged customer and apologising profusely. Since that boss is the ''[[TheMafia Don]]'', each and every pizza delivery driver knows well enough that they'd be better off breaking the speed limit, their cars, the sound barrier, ''anything,'' than deliver a pizza at 30:01 or later.
81	%%** In the anarcho-capitalist future USA presented in ''Literature/SnowCrash'', pizza is such serious business that there are full university courses dedicated to the post of pizza delivery boy. Pizza boys often have to be armed and be {{Badass Driver}}s capable of insane stunts to make sure the pizza arrives on time; for the [[TheFamilyForTheWholeFamily Cosa Nostra]] pizza chain, if your pizza order is cold when it arrives, the boss himself will personally arrive at your house and offer the humblest of apologies along with a guarantee that the boy responsible will be wearing CementShoes the same evening.
82	** Stephenson seems to be somewhat fond of turning mundane everyday situations into Serious Business: consider Randy tackling his everyday bowl of Cap'n Crunch in ''Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}}'', and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
83	** Also the multiple-page memo in ''Literature/SnowCrash'' dealing with intra-office purchase and use of toilet paper. Sadly, TruthInTelevision for anyone who's ever worked in a stuffy bureaucratic situation.
84	* In Creator/MichaelChabon's ''Literature/{{Summerland}}'', Little League baseball is the key to [[SaveBothWorlds saving the world and three other worlds]].
85	* An apparently nonhumorous one is found in the ''Literature/TakeshiKovacs'' book ''Woken Furies'', in which the grizzled mercenary recalls that the warring youth gangs of Harlan's World are divided into surfers and scuba divers. Kovacs himself joined a crew of bad ass scuba divers whose motto was "Dive deep. Die free. Leave the scum on the surface." One can only imagine hardened street thugs getting passionate about drifting around underwater looking at fish.
86	* In ''Literature/TerraIgnota'', the primary plot is only tangentially related to Bridger, a boy with inexplicable, godlike powers who the narrator claims is the true protagonist of the story. Most of it revolves around the theft of the Seven-Ten list, an annual editorial list of the ten most powerful people in the world, before it could go to print. The top seven are always the leaders of the Hives (hence the name), just in different orders, but the latest one swapped out the leaders for others. It's lampshaded multiple times that the list ''shouldn't'' be important as it's always the same seven people anyway, but there's been so much hype around it for decades that the theft of one is a huge deal.
87	* In ''Literature/TheThreeMusketeers'', several monks have a very long, involved talk over whether or not a priest should give blessings with one finger or two. Athos eventually realizes that [[LampshadeHanging the whole discussion is idiotic, and goes back to killing people]].
88	* The ''Literature/ThursdayNext'' novel series is set in an alternate-universe England. One of the key elements of this universe is that a countless number of things are Serious Business; for instance, people who disagree with the surrealist movement organize riots, and the titular character is in a government-sponsored division of law enforcement devoted solely to literary theft. There are also door-to-door evangelists who go around trying to convince people of who really wrote Shakespeare's plays. More examples on the work's page.
89	** Just to establish a baseline here, in one book a book sale is treated like a Black Friday sale in the modern US. Except instead of people getting trampled to death, there's actual gunfire. Thursday doesn't seem to think this is particularly abnormal for major books sales.
90	* Nevil Shute's ''Literature/TrusteeFromTheToolroom'' is practically the book of this trope in its most benign form. The hero, an unassuming staff writer for a model engineering hobby magazine, is able to gain the help of fellow hobbyists worldwide for whom model engineering is an important part of their lives to recover a lost fortune for his niece.
91	* The post-apocalyptic setting of ''Literature/TheUnexploredSummonBloodSign'' is post-apocalyptic because of the most disastrous breakup ever. Put simply, the setting's supreme deity got angry when her favorite human/toy didn't want to be with her anymore -- so angry that she slaughtered hundreds of innocent bystanders. This terrified everyone still alive and created a power vacuum so gaping that factions are still competing to fill it years later. There are ''cults'' whose goal is to mend the relationship.
92	* ''Literature/TheWaySeries'': ''Eon'' and ''Eternity'' revolve around an incredibly high-tech civilization which arose from the ashes of a late 20th century nuclear war. A large chunk of the population eschew that technology, are leery of advances which they see as dehumanising, and strive to live a "primitive" lifestyle based on the technology and norms of late 20th and early 21st century Earth. And their entire philosophy and religion is based on the teachings of... Ralph Nader's consumer advocacy in the 70s and 80s.
93	** They're even called "Naderites." The characters from the past {{lampshade\|Hanging}} this by commenting "Anyone tell him yet?"
94	* Creator/PGWodehouse:
95	** In the ''Literature/BlandingsCastle'' novels, the Shropshire fat pig contest is Serious Business indeed. So much so that the quest for the first prize for the Empress of Blandings drives the plot of several novels.
96	** Anything [[Literature/JeevesAndWooster Bertie Wooster]] or any of his pals attempt. Bertie compares his attempt to play a prank on Tuppy Glossop to the crusades (to name just one example).
97	** For Jeeves clothing is very Serious Business indeed, he is willing to destroy things of Bertie's that he doesn't like and bad fashion sometimes makes him [[SuckinessIsPainful physically ill]]. As he declares at one point, there is no time at which ties do not matter.
98	** Golf in the Oldest Member stories is treated like a religion, presided over by the Oldest Member.
99	** Cricket in the early portions of the ''Literature/{{Psmith}}'' series. (School sports in BoardingSchool stories were ''always'' serious business.)
100	** The climax of "The Nodder" involves a debate over the precise sound that a cuckoo makes getting so heated that eventually one man stands up and delivers a closing argument as if he's passionately inciting a jury to acquit someone wrongfully on trial for murder.
101	* ''Literature/YumiAndTheNightmarePainter'': The preeminent art form on Torio is also the cornerstone of its spiritual practice and its economy, as the creative exercise inspires [[OurSpiritsAreDifferent the earth spirits]] to transform into {{Magitek}} for a time. That art form is rock-stacking. Having dedicated her entire life to the art, Yumi is an ''incredible'' rock stacker.

Context SeriousBusiness / Literature