Was It Good For You?

[Jude Hardin]

Let's hear some positive things about books you've read recently. What about them made you want to shout, "Whoa! You have to read this!"?

[I. J. Parker]

Fossum is good.

[I. J. Parker]

Yes, tht's what you want in a series. :)

[Dana King]

I read Tim Hallinan's THE QUEEN OF PATPONG a couple of weeks ago. it's far and away the best book I've read in at least a year, maybe longer. It doesn't release until August or September, so make a note.

[I. J. Parker]

Hallinan is also good. Read the first one, though.

[I. J. Parker]

I post pretty regularly on the "What are you reading?" thread. True, that's a somewhat mixed bag, but I make it a point to praise those books that gave particular pleasure. Offhand, currently (I dip in and out of this book) it's Hilary Mantel's WOLF HALL that pleases and makes me think about the possibilities inherent in historical fiction. My "Whoa!" reading tends to be the kind I can learn from.

[Jude Hardin]

The great thing about a thread like this is discovering authors I'm not familiar with. Keep 'em coming!

[Jon Loomis]

I just finished reading The Inferno for about the ninth time.

Whoa.

You have to read this.

[I. J. Parker]

Read it. Didn't like it. Dante was a self-important bastard who thought he knew what God was thinking. Not only that, but he used his podium to make political war on his enemies.

[Jon Loomis]

You say that like it's a bad thing, IJ. The man was a genius--of course he was a self-important bastard! La Commedia is probably the greatest poem ever written--it's a work of extraordinary audacity and accomplishment, technically, imaginatively, and in terms of the enormity of its ambition. Perhaps the best part is that Dante's enemies are remembered by name now, 700 years later, only because Dante sunk them in rivers of shit in The Inferno. It's truly the ultimate revenge.

[Jude Hardin]

Never read this Dante fellow you speak of. Is he a NYT bestseller? Is he as good as Stephen King?

[Jon Loomis]

You guys are goofballs.

[Jude Hardin]

;)