by Richard Subber | Mar 21, 2024 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, World history
lots of personal drama
Book review:
Battle of Wits:
The Complete Story of Codebreaking
in World War II
by Stephen Budiansky (b.1957)
New York: The Free Press, 2000
436 pages with index, detailed notes
It is somewhat disappointing to me that Budianky’s well-researched work is focused on American and British codebreaking work during WWII, with relatively little said about the opposing code work of the Axis powers.
Nevertheless, Battle of Wits is a personalized and engaging account of the people involved in codebreaking that began, with baby steps, in the years following WWI.
It’s a lot to read, the personalities are dramatically presented, and there is a fair amount of technical stuff, so the book can satisfy both casual readers and the techies.
If you think you know a lot about Enigma and the Japanese code work and all of the half-truths about codebreaking in the second great war, read this book and learn some more.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review:
The American Revolution: A History
The “Founders” were afraid
of “democracy”…
by Gordon S. Wood
My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Mar 19, 2024 | Language, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
behind the frosted mist…
Revelation
Beyond my domain, I leaned ahead
to cross the slope
under a brazen sky.
In the chill of dawn, I stopped.
The apparition…
A bull appeared.
He turned his horns to me,
showed no fear,
no gaze of knowing,
no sentient nod,
he stepped away…
Another creature shambled near,
regarded me with innocence,
and scarcely paused,
his brawny flank rippling slowly
as he passed on…
I stretched my eye
to the scant egress
of these beasts with iron mien.
Indeed, I had not crossed the path
of a rambling herd.
I chanced to find
the portal of an ancient furnace of the gods,
who took such wild ores as they desired,
and stoked their smokeless fires
behind the frosted mist,
and conjured life,
and smelted the great brutes—
cold-forged in the chill of dawn—
who stepped heavily across my path
and did not mistake me
for their kind.
January 7, 2020
Inspired by this quotation:
“I had seen a herd of buffalo, 129 of them, come out of the morning mist under a copper sky, one by one, as if the dark and massive, iron-like animals with the mighty horizontally swung horns were not approaching but were being created before my eyes and sent out as they were finished.”
by Isak Dinesen
in Out of Africa (1938)
My poem “Revelation” was published in my sixth collection of 73 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”
“Revelation” also was published in my fifth collection of 53 poems, My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems.
You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle),
or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Seven Gothic Tales
by Isak Dinesen,
lush and memorable stories…
–
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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Mar 17, 2024 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Human Nature
very destructive bogus stuff going on…
Book review:
The Witches:
Suspicion, Betrayal, and Hysteria in 1692 Salem
by Stacy Schiff (b.1961)
Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2015
498 pages
It may be that Stacy Schiff has neglected to include some fact or sentiment about the Salem witch trials, but I can’t imagine what it might be. The Witches is an expansive compendium of the whos and whats and whys and wherefores of this compelling—yet essentially impenetrable—story about a community gone crazy.
Maybe you had to be there to understand it.
It’s too easy to suggest the McCarthy Communism hunting in 1954 as a modern analogy, but it won’t work. The whole dreadful McCarthy thing was a political football, approaching a sideshow even though it attracted the nominal attention of the nation and destroyed many lives.
The Salem witch trials (and the witch hunting that went on in neighboring towns) consumed the waking hours of all the townsfolk, who were deeply convinced that witches exist and that they are in league with satanic forces.
For my taste, Schiff tells too much of the story. I would have been content with a less detailed account. There is repetition that is dispensable.
For my taste, she struck a good balance between telling the story as it happened, and inviting the reader to suspect that the teenage girls were fooling all along, and that too many accusers had a personal reason to “get” the accused, and that too many religious and civic leaders struggled unsuccessfully with their religious faith and the opposing impulses of their arguably decent selves who quickly figured out that the witch craze was a very nasty game.
You don’t need to read the whole book to figure out that there was some very destructive bogus stuff going on in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692.
Maybe you don’t need to read the whole book to be convinced that some folks aren’t continuously motivated by a decent streak of good will and a desire to support communal well-being.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: An Empire on the Edge
by Nick Bunker
The British wanted to win
the Revolutionary War,
but they had good reasons
for not trying too hard…
My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Mar 14, 2024 | Reflections, Tidbits
to everything, its season…
“Speak…but…do not interrupt the music.”
Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 32:3
Listen whenever that seems best.
* * * * * *
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
The Man Who Never Was (book review)
Ewen Montagu tells his story
–
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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Mar 12, 2024 | Human Nature, Language, My poetry, Poetry
Dear, dear sprite…
and more…
Her lightest step is all she needs
to round the garden in her tour,
she makes no stand,
and fills the air with cherub chatter,
she makes scant imprint in the earth…
The elfin miss delights in play,
so wild, winsome,
willing to sing
what happiness she feels,
we little know its measure
nor the nature of her laugh, her smile,
the chirp of her siren sound.
Dear, dear sprite, she hops and bounces,
we scarcely reck the eldritch stuff,
what seems of perverse end
does not sustain a care
beyond the moment’s wisp of dread
that’s clapped away in her dance.
Her lightest step is all she needs
to round the garden in her tour,
she makes no stand,
she flutters, frisks in merriment,
and makes her joy…
June 12, 2022
Inspired by the child, Pearl, in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
How does a poem end?
“Finis,” my thoughts (my poem)
–
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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
* * * * * *
