Looking for gods/goddesses books

I am looking for some fictional/historical books about gods and goddesses. I have read some great ones and some really bad ones. It seems like the really great ones are harder to find. Can you help me?

Keri

Ilium by Dan Simmons, American Gods by Neil Gaiman come to mind.
It might help to give some examples of ones you have read and liked and ones read but didn't like, so that people don't recommend things you have already read and have an idea what you are looking for.

Gods Behaving Badly, by Marie Phillips, was a hoot!

Lilithcat--I thought of that one too! Fun book, but I'm not sure that's what gkmiller is looking for . . .

Yes, that one is good. I have such a wide variety of books I read. Speaking of this subject though...anywhere from Sherilyn Kenyon's books (loosly based on greek mythology), Gods Behaving Badly, some Alicia Fields, as well as American Gods, etc.

Keri

May I recommend Five books by Roberta Gellis. She is an excellent historical romance fiction author and these four books are the only ones that she wrote based on Gods and Goddesses. They have a little twist on the legend.

Thrice Bound - Hecate (very, very good)
Bull God - Minator (good but a little gory in parts)
Dazzling Brightness - Hades & Persephone (very good)
Shimmering Splendor - Eros & Psyche (good, a little light)
Enchanted Fire - Orpheus & Eurydice (very, very good)

Thorne Smith, Nightlife of the Gods. Hilarious classic.

On the non-humorous, taking-them-seriously side, I recommend Mary Renault's novels about ancient Greece, especially: The King Must Die & its sequel The Bull from the Sea, and The Mask of Apollo.

The Mists of Avalon deals with the old beliefs (and gods & goddesses) in Britain v. the new. The Amazon description says: "Christianity vs. Faery, and God vs. Goddess are dominant themes."

Perhaps Gore Vidal's Julian?

Those are wonderful suggestions! Thank you all.

I have to second #3's vote - Gods Behaving Badly. Hilarious and thoroughly enjoyable read.

Black Ships comes to mind. It's Aeneas' story rewritten to be more realistic for the time when it was set vs. the time when Virgil was telling it, and although it's described as fantasy because there are oracles speaking to gods and goddesses, I'd have no trouble believing that it accurately depicts the way people of bronze age Greece saw the world.

As lighter works I would recommend Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming and If at Faust You Don't Succeed. Also, the Heroes In Hell series is fun. Cheers.

in the comic vein there is Tom Holt with books likeExpecting Someone Taller

The War has ended, my lover has returned, we have married, but now he wants someone else.
I have messed up pretty badly,don't love myself too much. My friend Connie has dropped off a book he thinks will amuse me. Its "Nightlife of the Gods, by Thorne Smith, I sit alone, in a grubby little apartment, and laugh until the tears fall. This is the way to get through a another lonely night. I hadn't thought about that time for sixty years....

So far I am enjoying Alcestis by Katharine Beutner, but I am only about halfway through.

I liked Gods Behaving Badly as well. I also read Herald a few years back, which were the "memoirs" of Hermes. Not bad.

You don't give a preferred nationality for your deities but if you're interested in the Greek gods/goddesses the little series by the Stephanides brothers on Greek mythology is a nice introduction.