Plus, isn't Paul Auster beloved by the academic set? Or has that ship sailed? Or is it localized to NY?

Yes. Maybe. No.

I mean, I grew up with her (kinda, our parents got together when we were teens). I know she read non-erudite stuff then - lots of Stephen King, some romance.

And while her mother is a Shakespeare instructor, my father's bookshelves were the more erudite overall.

My DH tells me he's never read a mystery, so I get that some people aren't as catholic in their taste. But even he admitted to a reading a couple Hardy Boys and a Nancy Drew. And lots of gothic.

Does Poe count as mystery? I've always thought of him more in the horror vein.

I also totally forgot about all the YA mystery stuff I'd read - Nancy Drew, DUH.

Didn't the Butler do it?

NSM.

Does Poe count as mystery? I've always thought of him more in the horror vein.

He definitely did a lot of horror (though of a sort that relates to some of the modern psycho-thriller genre - Dexter for example), but Murders in the Rue Morgue (sp?) and the Gold Bug were big precursors to the detective novel.

Yeah, I thought that Poe was one of the early inventors of detective fiction.

I think that I read Dicken, Austen, and Shakespeare in high school. Maybe I only imagine that Austen was in the curriculum. I know I read her earlier than college.

The three Dupin stories, for sure.

I think what we might argue are mysteries and what people might think of if someone asks "Do you read/like mysteries? are two very different things.

My minor is in English, mostly so I could take creative writing. But even then I kind of kept my crime fiction habit on the down-low because it was "genre" and most of my teachers said that like I would say "gonorrhea". We were supposed to be mining our experiences and whatnot.I didn't read a mystery for quite a few years. Then I went through another phase where I read almost all women.(Found Sara Paretsky during that...I'm still a big fan) But really it wasn't till I read George Pelecanos' "Hard Revolution" that I realized that you can have a great mystery that makes a real point without "transcending" anything. George writes crime stories. About gentrification. And yet, they're still almost brutally cool. And I always think the "only turn the TV on in leap year" people have a secret video "vice"...like having seen every episode of "Family Matters" or something. There is something they don't want their brainiac friends to know that they watch. But then again, I'm a crime writer. I'm suspicious.

That seems right to me, Megan. I mean, I've read a few books by the Wire guys (Price, Pelecanos, Lehane, and one by Laura Lippman), and I've read most of Chandler's and Hammett's books, but I don't know if it would be right to call myself a reader of mysteries. Unless we're using the idea of mystery in a larger, more existential sense.

I took several literature courses in college, including two semesters of Shakespeare (one for histories and comedies, one for tragedies). Comes in handy when I watch the movie versions of his plays.

But I enjoy a fairly wide swath of fiction. I finished my latest commute-to-work book this morning (Anthony Trollope, Castle Richmond) and may finish my latest lunchtime book this weekend (Stephen King, It).

I didn't know that Lehane wrote for The Wire. Why aren't they mysteries? Aren't police procedurals a type of mystery?