by Richard Subber | Feb 15, 2025 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Politics, Power and inequality
They didn’t have an easy life…
Book review:
The Pioneers:
The Heroic Story of the Settlers
Who Brought the American Ideal West
by David McCullough (1933-2022)
Pulitzer Prize winner
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019
330 pages
This is bona fide David McCullough: endlessly researched, written in profoundly erudite prose, and honestly interesting to a wide range of readers.
The Pioneers tells you as much as (if not more than) you could ever care to know about the hardy folks who founded Marietta, Ohio, in the late 18th century, while George Washington was figuring out how to be our first president.
They didn’t have an easy life. They worked hard to keep slavery out of the Northwest Territory. They weren’t worried much about displacing the Native Americans who had lived in that region for thousands of years. They believed that they were brave and dedicated to making a good life, for themselves and their children.
They did a decent job, really. Read all about it, or read as much of it as you care to.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Bartender’s Tale
Ivan Doig’s story, I mostly loved it…
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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 | Feb 13, 2025 | Reflections, Tidbits
The main thing is what counts…
Michelangelo “left three-fifths
of his sculptures unfinished.”
Maybe other projects came along.
Maybe the patron changed his mind.
Maybe Michelangelo got tired of working on those pieces.
Maybe he forgot.
Point is, don’t worry if you don’t finish everything you start.
Figure out what the main thing is, and do it.
from
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
by David Epstein (b1983)
New York: Riverhead Books, 2019
quote is from p. 164
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
84, Charing Cross Road (book review)
Helene Hanff, on reading good books…
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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 | Feb 11, 2025 | Books, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections, Tidbits
see it clearly
dew not
Away, you foggy dew!
…in hazy morn it seems so clear,
our views of life embrace still air,
we want no clouds across our path,
we want no wind to fill the space
that brings the distant beauty near,
we want no rain
that draws our eyes
to up and up,
and wets the skies
and hides our dreams.
We want the void that touches all
and leaves no mark,
the see-through part
that makes each thing
some thing to see,
the empty place
where foggy dew
is always a stranger.
December 29, 2024
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: A Cold Welcome
The culprit was global cooling,
500 years ago…
by Sam White
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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 | Feb 9, 2025 | Theater and play reviews
lions know much
Movie review:
Out of Africa
1985
Rated PG
161 minutes
Out of Africa is a lovably unconventional love story, and the African scenes of flora and fauna are just lush. It won seven Oscars.
A daughter in a rich Danish family, Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep) works hard to maintain a coffee plantation in early 20th century Kenya, and in time she falls hard for the cavalierly independent Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford). They enjoy an ill-fated romance, ended by his untimely death.
This poem reflects my “Thumbs up!” review:
Lions know much
The she-lion came first
before sunrise lighted the lower plain.
She did not sniff the square of whitened stones,
nor the deranged, softly mounded earth.
She kept walking, slowly, in the lifting dark.
Later, she returned, with her mate,
to dally on that sunlit slope,
and gaze at the heedless beasts
on the plain below.
The pair returned, another day,
with easy steps,
to tarry in that terraced space,
they could not know, perhaps,
of the man who had been laid
in their earth, in their domain,
they lingered, not knowing, perhaps,
that the still form beneath their feet
had been a gentle man,
but aware, somehow,
that he had been of their world,
that they could add grace to his grave.
The film is based on the 1937 book, Out of Africa, by Karen Blixen (1885-1962) (pen name Isak Dinesen).
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Movie review. My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Address Unknown
A friendship corrupted by Nazi hatred in WWII
by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor
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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 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 | Feb 6, 2025 | Books, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections, Tidbits
think of new tomorrows…
caper
“The impossible closes around
like a smooth lake
on an early morning swim.”
…and you taste it,
and stroke through it,
the unseen ripples chase you
as you push your little wave ahead,
you think of new tomorrows,
and you make a silent promise,
and you see the new possible
as it capers on the morning shore.
December 23, 2024
The quote is from “Everything that is not you” by Jane Hirshfield. It inspired me.
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Tales from Shakespeare
summaries by Charles and Mary Lamb…
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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 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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