We don’t always know why a particular book resonates with us, and sometimes it’s counterproductive to examine that too closely. I tend to read books because they are about something other than my own place, time or worldview, and it’s that “not-me” I value. The only exceptions to this rule I can think of off the top of my head are Alice McDermott’s CHARMING BILLY, which gave me a whole new frame for looking at my own family, and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A LITTLE PRINCESS, which might have given me my earliest fictional role model.

And just saying that, I feel I’ve given far too much away…

HOWEVER: Mr. Connolly is empirically correct in this instance. THE RELIGION is a butt-kicking novel of the first order. I read it in 48 hours and have been stalking Willock’s Amazon page for years now awaiting the sequel. How can you of all people, not like RELIGION???? Great characters, huge battles, suspense, fine writing–everything we want in a book. In fact, quite Dickensian in its conceit and intention. If I die before reading the sequel, I will also feel diminished and cheated.

I think books are totally a matter of taste, but I suspect there’s almost something about hitting the right book at the right moment in time; it’s like people–sometimes you’re more (or less) inclined to ‘love the one you’re with.”

That said, I also agree with Mr. Connolly that as a reader, there’s something really distressing about pointing someone towards a book that bored them. (If they hated it, that’s okay, since it made them feel something strongly.) I feel for him. I’d feel for your boredom too, but you’re just simply dead wrong about THE RELIGION. I know what I’m sending you for your birthday, and it’s gonna be the hardback…