And that’s without taking into account the recommendations of friends (Sir Fleming, for example, has lain a couple screeds afore me that I’m very much looking forward to chewin’ on) (metaphorically, mean. Teethmarks on pages are somethin’ I can’t abide by.) (Nor p*bic hair, which I’ve found afore now. Not in Sir Fleming’s books, mind you) or reviews or interviews given by folks I admire or the next conversation twixt Sirs Mary and Berlin. Who the hell knows what crazy tomes’ll have sneaked onto the Big Ol’ List back my eyes afore all that’s over and done with?

Mary K. Williams:

So, evidently prompted by myself and Eric Berlin, Sir Aaron Fleming posed the question about the reading habits of Mondo, and by extension, the reading habits of the world. Why, how, when?

Hell, let’s just start back at the beginning. I was a young lass, most likely bored out of my mind when in my parents home, I wandered by a bookcase filled with old encyclopedias. They had that delicious, old musty book smell. Not sure if I was taken in by the romance of the must and dust infused aroma, or again, that I was awfully bored, but I ended up picking up a volume that soon became my favorite. This tome was all about Greek and Roman mythology, and I loved it.

But I read modern stuff too. I read every Nancy Drew I could get my hands on, and then started in on my brothers’ Hardy Boys. And then there was my parents’ stuff. First, there was the Reader’s Digest that appeared every month. Always something good in there. (I actually seriously considered a career in medicine from reading 'I am Joe’s Heart', thought it was going to be romance, ha! The laugh was on me!) I read the Redbooks and the Good Housekeepings and the Family Circles, but as fun as those magazines were, that was kid stuff.

Peter Benchley, now this was something I could sink my teeth into. Riveting action and some pretty hot sex. The name you might not know, but the book (and subsequent movie) had a nice little following: Jaws. Another novelist of the same time period, William Peter Blatty wrote some pretty compelling stuff, but this was forbidden by my parents. This, of course, made it all the more desirable. When I finally read The Exorcist, I almost wish I hadn’t, it was that unnerving. Now, they never banned The Drifters by Steinbeck, which was interesting, as there was mucho mention of free sex and all kinds of drug use.