by Richard Subber | Apr 12, 2026 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Joys of reading
This is good storytelling
Book review:
The Brothers
by Janet M. Kovarik
2014
If you’re a student of the Civil War, you’ll recognize the actual historical figures who are part of the story, and you’ll quickly feel comfortably familiar with Stu and Beau and Sarah and their families, because they embody some of the compelling human agents of the wartime drama.
These characters are three-dimensional. There is human urgency in their speech and actions. These are cerebral characters who are articulately reflective, thoughtful about their circumstances and their life journeys, and passionate about love and rectitude and their personal legacies and futures.
The Brothers is the first novel in The McCullough Saga. The twins, Beau and Stu, have explicitly distinct personalities but their lives have remarkably similar if unconventional trajectories. They are the central figures in a human story, on a human scale, with a conspicuously realistic historical setting. Storm Haven, their deep South plantation, is convincingly researched, as are the gritty battle scenes, the economics and logistics of the war, the arduous success of the Underground Railroad and the delights of antebellum southern cuisine.
The Brothers is a dialogue-rich offering of historical fiction. I’m a dialogue fan. This is good storytelling.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
The Bridges of Madison County
book/movie review
If you’re looking for highly stoked eroticism,
look elsewhere.
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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 | Apr 9, 2026 | Joys of reading, Language, Reviews of other poets
I’m open to being tantalized…
“We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men”
from “The Hollow Men,” 1925, by T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965)
American-British writer, popularly acclaimed as a great poet of the 20th century
At long last, I’ve tried T. S. Eliot’s poetry.
I respectfully think that T. S. Eliot’s poetry is a bloomin’ wasteland…
Maybe I’ll put Collected Poems of T. S. Eliot back on the shelf, and try again after a while.
Maybe not.
It’s not that I mind Eliot’s deliberate contradictions so much. I’m willing to be provoked. I’m open to being tantalized. I’m ready to be pushed or pulled outside my comfort zone.
The sticky point for me, with Eliot’s poetry, is that I never seem to get to the point, or maybe I simply don’t get the point. When I get to the end of one of his longish poems, I’m really not sure where I started, or where I wandered, or where I arrived.
I find little coherence in Eliot’s words and phrases and passages.
I think of myself as a wordsmith, and I love the beauty of elegant phrases and shimmering, specific, steely, selective, stately, splendid words that tell a delicious story or evoke a bloom of emotion.
For my taste, T. S. Eliot’s poetry isn’t tasty, and it’s a bloomin’ wasteland of jumbled words, fractured images, and unfinished imaginations.
If you’re wondering where all the flowers have gone, don’t look for answers in Eliot’s work.
Source: T. S. Eliot, Collected Poems of T. S. Eliot (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1958), 101.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
“Fishering,” by Brian Doyle
…what meets the eye…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Apr 7, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry
we did it…
once…
We did a big thing.
We got dressed up,
invited family and friends,
said the words,
traded rings,
danced at the party,
drank the champagne,
stood for the picture,
rolled away in the car…
we started our lives together.
September 28, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Snow Goose
…sensual drama, eminently poetic…
by Paul Gallico
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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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by Richard Subber | Apr 4, 2026 | Theater and play reviews
a really good story…
Movie review:
The Fugitive
The fugitive is Dr. Richard Kimble (vigorously played by Harrison Ford), unjustly accused of murdering his wife and on the run from the police while he searches for the one-armed man who actually did the deed.
The Fugitive (1993, rated PG-13, 130 minutes) is a rip-roaring story with what I dare to claim is the most thrilling, scary, truly realistic train wreck sequence ever brought to the silver screen.
The Fugitive is a two-man show: an all-American guy aiming to prove his innocence and a passion-less cop who’s trying to track him down.
During the film, U.S. Deputy Marshall Sam Gerard (played by Tommy Lee Jones, he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor) transforms himself from a relentlessly heartless good-guy to a good good-guy.
Perhaps you remember the top-rated mostly B&W television series “The Fugitive” (1963-1967) starring David Janssen. The 1993 movie is great proof that you can tell a really good story in less than 120 episodes.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: Mila 18
horrific truth by Leon Uris
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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 | Apr 2, 2026 | 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.
to come
The star of day
troubles low clouds
in the earliest dawning,
there is none of day,
the horizon a muddle,
the faint light
pushes the high dark,
a promise strains in the vault.
November 16, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Sea Runners
…it informs, it does not soar…
by Ivan Doig
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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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