Saint Jerome Quote of the Day: There are two kinds of novels my friend . . .

To paraphrase Tuco in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, there are two kinds of books I read, classics and junk. If I read one James Baldwin or Wilkie Collins novel, I have to follow it up with three times the amount of junk (though Collins, with his sensation novels and mysteries, WAS junk his day). My junk consists of true crime (the older the better), pulps like Erle Stanley Gardner and Ellery Queen (pre-1960s for both), historical romances (or hysterical — take your pick. The latter adjective is a good substitute for the former) and the contemporary romances by the same authors. I also read a lot of stuff that falls into the gray zone like Winston Graham's Poldark novels, Georgette Heyer regencies and Lolah Burford historical novels. I usually avoid chick lit and Oprah choices.

Well, I tend to leave my current reading materials around and Saint Jerome frequently takes a peek and is frequently amazed at how explicit some of the junk I read is (it's always mildly amusing to me, especially the hysterical romances, which I read for the costume descriptions).

So one day, he comes out of the bathroom with Beaumarchais's Figaro trilogy in one hand and some bodice ripper in the other and says to me, "You know, you only read two types of books — literature and cliterature."