by Richard Subber | Dec 31, 2022 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading
…turn off the TV…
Book review:
All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays
by George Orwell (1903-1950)
Compiled by George Packer, Introduction by Keith Gessen
Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc., 2008
374 pages
Orwell wrote essays, lots of them.
Mostly, All Art is Propaganda is good reading.
Get the book and turn off the TV.
Forget about Call of Duty, Minecraft, Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto…
Read some of Orwell’s stuff.
Think about it.
No commercial interruptions.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review:
John Eliot:
The Man Who Loved The Indians
Entertaining, convenient biography
by Carleton Beals
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Dec 26, 2022 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Politics, Power and inequality
money did a lot of the talking…
Book review:
The Founders’ Fortunes:
How Money Shaped the Birth of America
by Willard Sterne Randall
New York: Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2022
324 pages
Randall offers details about the wealth—and intermittent lack thereof—of a number of the so-called “Founding Fathers,” and how persistently those men looked out for their own financial interests throughout the Revolutionary era.
Presumptively you aren’t surprised to learn about these details.
There’s plenty more to learn when you read The Founders’ Fortunes.
The matter-of-fact point is that these men were looking out for themselves at the same time that they were creating the independent United States of America.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review: An Empire Divided
King George and his ministers
wanted the Caribbean sugar islands
more than they wanted the 13 colonies…
by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Dec 25, 2022 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
doing the right thing is easy…
A man’s job
I won’t sell my trees.
The balsams would go quickly
at “cut your own” prices,
but I tell my neighbors, again this year,
there will be no cutting
on this old slope that spills down
to my little barn.
Day is darkening,
and I move among my trees.
This one, bent and broken
in last winter’s snows,
has grown,
the birds of spring may nest
in its green spaces…
and now, from below,
the boy climbs to me, his head down,
his father’s axe in hand,
he has changed since his father died,
he tries to do a man’s work,
he will have little time
for baseball with the other boys.
“I told Momma I would find a tree,
to make a Christmas for Becky and the baby.”
So.
He holds his axe in both hands,
and he stands straight in my field.
I extend my arm.
“Go find a good one,
I can help you carry it home.”
December 1, 2018
My poem “A man’s job” was published in my third collection of 64 poems, In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears. You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, click here
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
“…and dipped in folly…”
only Poe knows how to say it…
–
Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Dec 23, 2022 | Book reviews, Books, History, Politics, World history
“the invisible hand,” not so much
Book review:
The Classical School:
The Birth of Economics in 20 Enlightened Lives
by Callum Williams
New York: PublicAffairs/Hachette Book Group, 2020
277 pages
The Classical School is a readable, suitably deep dive into the lives, the thinking, and the impacts of famous economists and non-economists in history, and you’ve heard of many of them (I recognized 14 of the 20 subjects).
“Economics” wasn’t always “the dismal science.” There was plenty of ruminative exploration of commercial and political issues that are the historic and current foundation of economics.
Most of the men and women highlighted in The Classical School were right some of the time, and wrong some of the time.
It’s like that right now.
You will learn compellingly interesting stuff from Williams.
F’rinstance, Adam Smith, in his The Wealth of Nations, mentions “the invisible hand” only once, and he does not use it to mean that an unfettered “free market” will always make things turn out right. (p. 64)
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
social media making America stupid…
Jonathan Haidt explains in The Atlantic
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Dec 21, 2022 | Joys of reading, My poetry, Poetry
more champion stuff…
hula hope
She wanted to do it.
She wanted to keep the hula hoop around her hips,
and she knew it was supposed to go around
and around,
and she knew it wasn’t supposed to be on the ground.
She bent over to pick it up,
time after time,
imagining hope
as she hipped it again and again,
as she vainly tried to keep it whirling
and used her hands to make the thing
do what it’s supposed to do…
She didn’t understand that rhythm is work,
and hard work makes great rhythm,
and she had to give her energy to the hoop
so it could caress her little body,
and make her a champion.
August 2, 2022
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review: Cleopatra: A Life
…don’t even think
about Gordon Gekko…
by Stacy Schiff
–
Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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