Linden Hills

 

While I think Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place was her best this is pretty darn close. Both explore characters that are homosexual and poor. The difference here is that most of the characters are men and some of the characters actually live well. The main characters are Lester who lives in this upper-class African American neighborhood and Willie who doesn't. Meanwhile we meet other characters like the drunken reverend and Daniel Braithwaite. Daniel's father wanted him to leave Linden Hills and then bring something back. His choice of becoming a historian is definitely different than what I expected. Luther Nedeed is the main leader of the town, the one in power. His breakdown at the end is particularly chilling.  I love Gloria Naylor. I'm surprised she's not as known as Toni Morrison. She's pretty good.  

The Space Vampires

 

I read a bit of Colin Wilson in my early twenties. I love The Outsider and The Occult. They were pretty good. I have yet to find a fictional book of his that matches up to those books. I read Ritual in the Dark and that was ok but nothing really compelling. I decided to give this one a chance since it had an amusing story about it. John Fowles said that a movie based on his book The Magus was the worst movie made. Colin Wilson said that the movie Lifeforce just beat that. (Lifeforce was based on this book.) It's about a race of creatures who take over human bodies. It talks about vampirism and mentions how this the transfer is affected through sex. Colin Wilson spends way too much time philosophizing about the space vampires. In The Outsider philosophy was fine but come on this book is called The Space Vampires. It wasn't what I wanted. It runs of steam but at least the first 1/3 of the book is entertaining. 

Nordic Tales

 

This is a collection from Chronicle books that features folktales from Denmark, 0Norway, Sweden, and Finland. My favorite story was "The Honest Penny" which was about a boy whose honesty eventually granted him favors later on. The illustrations were pretty cool. Overall, this was very worth reading.  

A Lesson Before Dying

 

This was a great book about friendship. It's about an atheist teacher Grant who befriends a prisoner in jail about to go to the electric chair. Grant teaches at an elementary school. You get the impression he is working beneath himself that he is taking the only opportunity he has in that racist era. He comes across as quite intelligent. I like how his atheism isn't magically transformed by the end like I thought it was going to be. Religion is discussed though especially through the Reverend character. This book was pretty moving and definitely worth a read. 

The Death Notebooks

 

This is basically Anne Sexton talking about God. Cynicism and faith are battled against each other. I found the opening poem "Gods" the best where Anne searches for God and finds him at her house. I've read Anne Sexton's biography by Diane Middlebrook and a couple of Anne's books. I didn't know that Anne Sexton had a religious side. This was a nice surprise. 

Lupercal

 

This was another poetry collection yet again mostly about nature. Ted Hughes is ok, but he hasn't really stood the test of time well. I feel like he was kind of a one trick pony. I'm curious about Birthday Letters but I probably won't read more of him. 

Ted Hughes The Hawk in the Rain

 

I decided to read Ted Hughes' first poetry collection. I already read "Selected Poems" earlier. The best poems from this were in that collection like "The Casualty" and "The Thought Fox." This collection goes between nature and war poems. The war poems are just ok, but his nature poems are where he shines. I think Ted Hughes early period is worth reading. In "Selected Poems" the older he grew the less interesting his poems were. His poems from his youth are more full of ideas and there's more enthusiasm. I might just read "Lupercal", another one of his early poetry collections.