Riffs: Mary Stein, assistant library director, East Baton Rouge

“Depending on my mood, the weather, music on the radio or how much time I have, I will re-visit classics like Pride and Prejudice, Cannery Row, or To Kill a Mockingbird, or move to favorite historical mysteries and comic capers by Elizabeth Eyre (kind of like Fellini’s Satyricon, only with a real plot), Ellis Peters, Alan Gordon, Donald Westlake, Ngaio Marsh, Tony Hillerman, Joan Hess or Randall Garrett. I also love The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. I might pick up an entire series and read one a day, which can almost put one in an altered state of reality, or just jump around. On vacation I read Evanovich’s entire Stephanie Plum series and by the time we got through Texas, I was literally ‘channeling’ Grandma Mazur.”