by Richard Subber | Nov 6, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
your own slow smile grows…
Book review:
The Price of Salt
by Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995)
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada: Must Have Books, 1952,2021
166 pages
“…(Carol’s) slow smile growing, before her arm lifted suddenly,
her hand waved a quick, eager greeting that Therese had never seen before.
Therese walked toward her.”
As you read the last words of The Price of Salt, your own slow smile grows. It’s a love story that ends happily.
The story of the love story is challenging—it embraces peaks of happiness and vales of sadness and anger. Like every love story, I guess.
Carol and Therese are different personalities, they imagine different lives—but they never stop seeing their future lives together after their completely serendipitous first meeting. They never stop struggling to get to the future. Therese says: “Everything’s not as simple as a lot of combinations.”
Highsmith tells a compelling story, but she makes the reader work for it. The prose is congested, there are quirky side trips in the action, the men in their lives are more caricature than personality, and both Carol and Therese repeatedly invite the reader’s patience as they try to think about what they’re thinking about.
It doesn’t stop the smiles from growing.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Comanche Empire
the other story of the American West…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Nov 4, 2025 | Human Nature, Poetry, Reflections, Reviews of other poets, Tidbits
Write yourself a note…
. . . what of your rushed and useful life?
Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything—
leaving only a note:
“Gone to the fields to be lovely. . .”
by Lynn Ungar
Indeed.
Color me gone.
Give yourself permission to be lovely.
From “Camas Lilies” by Lynn Ungar in Blessing the Bread: Meditations. © Skinner House, 1995.
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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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many waters: more poems with 53 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 | Nov 1, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry
The Book of Days
The dawn’s early light can be pleasure enough for the whole day.
There are words enough to tell the story of “the temptation of day to come.”
It is my delight to write some of them for your delectation.
Rising
O sol! star fire in the sky!
I cannot look at your eye
as you climb the day,
and I will not look away.
May 24, 2019
My poem “Rising” was published in my sixth collection of 74 poems, Above all: Poems of dawn and more.
You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle),
or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”
My poem “Rising” was published in my fourth collection of 55 poems, As with another eye: Poems of exactitude.
You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle),
or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: “The Gentle Boy”
The Puritans had a dark side…
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 74 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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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