Mario Reading was born in Dorset, and brought up in England, Germany, and the South of France. During a nomadic youth, Reading sold rare books, taught riding in Cape Town, studied dressage in Vienna, played polo in India, France, Spain, and Dubai, ran a seventy-horse polo stable in Gloucestershire, and helped manage his Mexican wife's coffee plantation. He is the author of six novels including the internationally bestselling Antichrist Trilogy, along with eight non-fiction titles dealing with Nostradamus. He is also a member of Mensa and the ultra high IQ society, the ISPE [The International Society for Philosophical Inquiry]. In 2015, he was voted one of the Top 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People by Watkins Mind Body Spirit Magazine.