It took me a while to get to Paradiso tr. Mary Jo Bang because, after falling in love with her liquid, rushing translation of Inferno a few years ago, I had somehow missed her translation of Purgatorio, and I wanted to read it first, I mean, you can't just rush straight into heaven, right? And here's the thing. I have read maybe a dozen Inferno translations, and maybe two Purgatorios, and never before a Paradiso. Why? I dont' know. So where Bang's translation of Inferno was like a single facet in a beautiful diamond for me, where many of the passages competed in my head with other translations, Bang's translation of Paradiso was a full and first-time experience of Dante's view of heaven for me. And it was lovely, lucid, thought-provoking, beautiful. It allowed me to imagine Dante writing Heaven into being, while believing in the truth of Heaven. I'd heard that Paradiso was intellectually challenging and a little boring. In Bang's translation it felt like I kept opening doors to new wonders, new thoughts.

I need to say a word about the quality of these books in physical form. It's such a joy to hold them in my hands, to smell them, to turn a page and see a new vivid illustration of the text. I urge you to buy this book and not limit yourself to a screen, not this time.