by Richard Subber | May 22, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Politics, Power and inequality
What if we run out of fish?
Book review:
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
by Elizabeth Kolbert
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2014
319 pages
The unsurprising but unfamiliar takeaway from The Sixth Extinction: global climate change isn’t the only globally devastating problem that we have to deal with because it may make human beings extinct on our planet.
Mankind and womankind are changing the biosphere of Earth: animals, other living creatures, and plants are being extinguished at a devastating high rate, as a result of human agency. In the plainest terms: we need these animals, other living organisms, and plants in order to survive. There is no substitute for them.
We’re not just talking about a few snail darters in an environmentally endangered stream somewhere, and Kolbert isn’t doing sloganeering about “save the whales” or anything like that.
Extinctions of important elements in the natural food chain are continuing and accelerating, as a result of humans’ ability to interact with nature in both positive and negative ways on every land mass and body of water on the surface of the globe. Changes in the environment and changes in the food chain are happening too fast for many species to adapt and survive. What do we do if bees stop pollinating our fruit trees? What do we do if the oceans continue to become more acidic and won’t support the fish stocks we rely on for food?
The Sixth Extinction is a frightening read. It’s also a more difficult read than it needs to be: Kolbert’s prose is engaging and literate (this isn’t a beach book, no way), but it seems like she wrote two different books and then shuffled their pages together. Her devastating and irrefutable message is nearly obscured by her detailed treatment of example species like penguins, foraminifera, graptolites, corals, and little brown bats. Be prepared to skim.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review:
American Scripture:
Making the Declaration of Independence
…basically, it’s trash talk to King George
by Pauline Maier
–
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 | May 20, 2025 | Language, Poetry, Tidbits
all kinds of love…
“Perfect love has a breath of poetry…”
from Silas Marner
by “George Eliot” (Mary Ann Evans, 1819-1880)
Boston: Ginn and Company, 1898
p. 185
Indeed, it is an apple breath…
* * * * * *
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
A poem about the right thing
…and the lesser incarnation…
“Vanity”
–
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 | May 18, 2025 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
sweet success
redux
It’s okay to do it again,
we finally start to learn
that “again” is a potent word,
an invitation, a command,
a goal, a triumph,
a reminder
that we don’t always get it right,
and the do-over
can be salvation
and sweet success
and atonement,
another chance to share a smile,
another round of thank-yous,
the best “I love you”
ever whispered.
March 1, 2025
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | May 15, 2025 | American history, Books, History
The “pack horse librarians” of Kentucky in 1935
Another daunting truth about the Great Depression in America (1929-1939):
Almost two-thirds of the beleaguered folks in eastern Kentucky
had no access to public libraries,
and about 30% of rural Kentuckians were illiterate (!).
Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration to the rescue! In 1935 the WPA organized a system of rural book deliveries by women on horseback—the “pack horse librarians.” (A “pack horse” was one carrying a load of any kind, and the “book ladies” piled on the books for their treks among the rural folk). As their delivery service flourished, they delivered about 3,000 books each month to kids and adults on their routes.
The pack horse librarians earned about $28 a month (roughly $500 in current dollars). Their book inventory was limited: the riders themselves created recipe books and scrapbooks of current events, and more or less every PTA member in Kentucky donated books for their patrons.
The most popular books? It was a regular rundown of favorites: travel, adventure, religion, kids’ picture books, and detective and romance magazines.
Eleanor Roosevelt, a champion of this equine service, visited one of the offices in West Liberty, Kentucky. The pack horse librarians kept up their work until 1943, when paying for World War II took priority.
The book lovers in rural Kentucky had to wait about 15 years to regain regular access to books, which was re-established when some of the early bookmobiles were put into service.
See more details at this Open Culture website
Here’s a topical 2019 novel about one of the pack horse librarians:
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
by Kim Michele Richardson
click here
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Blithedale Romance
by Nathaniel Hawthorne, not his best…
–
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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | May 13, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
you hear what you hear…
andante, redux
Maybe we hear the music
we want to hear,
maybe each ear
hears its own sound,
maybe Beethoven
really didn’t have a problem,
maybe music really is
a many-splendored thing,
maybe the cranky tunes
I hear now in this empty lounge
are sweeter music
to the madame
who intently pushes the keys,
and stares at her old pages
cramped with penciled mementos,
and waves off
brief words from a passerby,
and hears that pastorale
as she played it long ago
with nimbler fingers
and a steady foot,
and charmed some children,
and some friends,
and a lover,
and nodded with Beethoven’s shade,
and never guessed
that she would play
that tune again
as I wander by
and briefly hear my version,
and wonder about her music.
Feb 20, 2025
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
“…and dipped in folly…”
only Poe knows how to say it…
–
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.
* * * * * *
