by Richard Subber | Jan 23, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, History, World history
a wonkish analysis of combat…
Book review:
Military Power:
Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle
by Stephen Biddle
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004
337 pages
Military Power is a fastidiously wonkish analysis of combat and military power.
Biddle makes his case for considering that “force employment,” i.e., combat doctrine and tactics, is at least as important in understanding the outcomes of battle as the count of who has the most guns and the biggest armies.
Earlier authors might have called it “leadership.”
Biddle offers remarkably detailed blow-by-blow commentary about the second battle of the Somme River in 1918, the Allies’ Normandy breakout in 1944, and Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
It’s not an easy read. Military Power will reward the reader who wants to know more.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 20232 All rights reserved.
Book review:
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
from the agile mind
of Arthur Conan Doyle
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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 | Jan 18, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Joys of reading
love and trust and good will…
Book review:
Silas Marner
by Mary Ann Evans “George Eliot” (1819-1880)
English novelist, an icon in Victorian literature
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1899, repr. 1932
348 pages
Silas Marner is, ultimately, a story of love and trust and good will in a world that tolerates all of the manifestations of the human spirit, both good and ill.
The story invites you to pay attention to the good guys.
Evans (Eliot) offers some of her insights regarding “people whose lives have been made various by learning.” (p. 24)
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
The “dime novels” in the Civil War
Think “blood-and-thunder”…
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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 | Jan 16, 2023 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
a short time to be in love…
I forgot to get a card…
It’s not about the candles and the cake,
it’s not about singing
the same old song anymore,
it’s not about the date anymore,
not an event,
not a stopping place—
it’s another reminder that a year
is a long time to live,
and a short time to be in love,
it’s a marker on the trail,
and the trail is rising,
and the mountains are behind us,
and the oceans, yes, and many mysteries…
Just ahead, the path turns again, as always,
and we do not see much of the morrow,
and naught of the waiting tomorrows,
but we see the coming of our latter days,
and we can sing yesterday’s songs
at each new dawn,
and sing them again and again and again,
and add new words at each new sunset…
May 8, 2017
I confess, I didn’t forget to get a card—I couldn’t find a card that I wanted to give. You can guess whose birthday I was celebrating. I decided to write a birthday poem that doesn’t actually mention “birthday” and skips all the smarmy stuff and doesn’t bother with the “you’re only as old as you feel” stuff and the “omigawd, how many candles are on your cake?” stuff. A birthday is a day in our lives. We celebrated our lives together. Every day.
My poem “I forgot to get a card…” 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”).
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
A poet is a “maker”
…and it doesn’t have to rhyme…
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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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by Richard Subber | Jan 11, 2023 | Books, Reflections, Tidbits
“The beginning is always today.”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851)
Today started when you woke up. Think about beginnings.
Thanks to my trusted advisor for this one.
Shelley wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), and by the way, if you’ve only watched the movie, you don’t know the Frankenstein story. Read the book.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
from the agile mind
of Arthur Conan Doyle
–
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”
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by Richard Subber | Jan 6, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
television is entertainment at its worst
Book review:
Amusing Ourselves to Death:
Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
by Neil Postman (1931-2003)
New York: Elisabeth Sifton Books/Viking, 1985
184 pages
This is a rare treasure—a can’t-put-it-down kind of book.
I wish I’d read it 35 years ago.
Amusing Ourselves to Death is a 184-page drumbeat of insight and reality about the devastating impact of television on our culture and our prospects of living the good life.
Postman, a media theorist and cultural critic, says television “is a medium which presents information in a form that renders it simplistic, nonsubstantive, nonhistorical and noncontextual; that is to say, information packaged as entertainment.” (p. 141)
He wrote the book before the internet got really started, and before the enhanced horrors of social media like Facebook and Twitter and TikTok.
He continued to write about the failures of our educational enterprises and the negative impacts of technology on our culture.
Don’t let Amusing Ourselves to Death be the only Postman book you read in the near future.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review:
The American Revolution: A History
The “Founders” were afraid
of “democracy”…
by Gordon S. Wood
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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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