Books! Share! Quote!---Dante

Oh another quote from Mr. Dante Alighieri, rendered into English by Mr. Durling:

I returned from the most holy wave refreshed, as new plants are renewed with new leaves, pure and made ready to rise to the stars. 

Those are the last lines from Dante's Purgatorio as translated by Durling. Pretty, pretty. It's lovely that all of the poems begin and end with the stars, there's something so anciently wonderful about that. Dante may have been an arrogant motherfucker (for reals, Mr. Dante, you put yourself in Heaven?) but he knew how to write a poem. I am surprised time and again at the mastery of the Divine Comedia, especially after the schlock (and yeah when the Professor looks embarrassed and says what you're about to read isn't literature) of The Vita Nouva and The Convivio. You know, after suffering through Dante's endless blathering about Beatrice in The Vira Nouva and at the end of Purgatory, I kinda want a shirt that says: Beatrice Better Be Hot. Or Shut Up Dante And Just Narrate.

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Hmmms,  has anyone read any Stephen R. Lawhead? I have a copy of Hood in my hand and am wondering if it is worth taking home with so much else to read.....but it's a Robin Hood story and I haven't read a Robin Hood tale since I was in middle school....the dilemma.