by Richard Subber | Nov 5, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Language
the old warm quilt…
Book review:
My Mother’s House and Sido
by Colette (Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette) (1873-1954)
French writer, nominated for Nobel Prize in 1948
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1953
219 pages
Colette’s life was an abundance of verve. She pushed through every door.
She infused her characters and her stories with verve. Colette’s characters are alive.
This is old-fashioned fiction, the kind that invites the reader to snuggle a bit deeper under the old warm quilt and keep reading…
It’s a pleasure to read My Mother’s House and Sido.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
84, Charing Cross Road (book review)
Helene Hanff, on reading good books…
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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 | Oct 29, 2026 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Human Nature, Revolutionary War
The British stopped fighting…
Book review:
The Men Who Lost America:
British Leadership,
the American Revolution,
and the Fate of the Empire
by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy (b1959)
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013
466 pages
O’Shaughnessy takes the unusual approach of writing nine detailed biographies of the men in the British government whose collective decisions and actions culminated in the loss of the North American colonies during the Revolutionary War.
The Men Who Lost America is a dispassionate debunking of the schoolboy history myth that Washington and his brave Continental Army troops survived the Valley Forge winter to beat the British at Yorktown in 1781, and win the war. Huzzah!
Of course the British—from King George III to his key ministers to the generals and admirals who tried to follow their orders—wanted to win the war. Of course they did.
Nevertheless, The Men Who Lost America lays out the numerous ways that these men never got around to sending enough troops and ships to subdue the American rebels. They never had a war-winning reserve of troops and ships to send, because they were too busy trying to secure their Caribbean sugar island colonies against French and Spanish attacks, and too busy fighting imperial military actions in Canada, Gibraltar, and India.
In fact, O’Shaughnessy demonstrates that the British were not totally defeated in North America. In simple terms, the men who “lost America” finally stopped fighting a war they finally realized they could not win.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: An Empire Divided
King George and his ministers
wanted the Caribbean sugar islands
more than they wanted the 13 colonies…
by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy
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Empyrean: new poems with 57 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 | Oct 24, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, Language, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
turmoil in the reading
Book review:
The Homeplace
by Marilyn Nelson Waniek (b1946)
Prize-winning American poet
Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1990
Thinking about writing this review of The Homeplace re-boots the cold explosion in my self.
Honestly, there was turmoil in this reading.
Marilyn Nelson Waniek is a respected black poet. I’m an old white guy who writes and cares about poetry.
I don’t read much poetry by other writers that appeals to me. This doesn’t make me special. I think it’s an ordinary experience.
When I say that much of Marilyn Nelson’s work doesn’t appeal to me, that doesn’t signify much of anything out of the ordinary.
When I say that some of the poems wrap their hands around my throat and squeeze directly through to my soul, it signifies exactly what those words mean.
It’s not “black poetry,” let’s get that straight. That term necessarily implies that there is “white poetry.” I think there are ways to characterize poetry, but the demeaning simplicity of “black poetry” or “white poetry” isn’t acceptable. I think it’s not possible. Poetry is personal, and it doesn’t have a skin color.
Here’s an excerpt from The Homeplace:
These are words from “Chosen,” an understated account of a white Southern master and Diverne, a young black woman who is his slave, and Pomp, their son.
“Diverne wanted to die, that August night
his face hung over hers, a sweating moon.
She wished so hard, she killed part of her heart
…And the man who came
out of a twelve-room house and ran to her
close shack across three yards that night, to leap
onto her cornshuck pallet. Pomp was their
share of the future. And it wasn’t rape.
In spite of her raw terror. And his whip.”
I’d like to say I think I want to walk a mile in Marilyn Nelson’s shoes.
Maybe I was able to trudge a few steps when I read her poems.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Financier
Theodore Dreiser’s villain…
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In high meadows: poems abide with 60 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 | Oct 13, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
warmly readable…
Book review:
Sweet Juice and Ruby-Bitter Seed
by Merryn Rutledge
American Fork, Utah: Kelsay Books, 2023
69 pages
Merryn Rutledge writes poems like few people write poems.
There is no relentless rhyming, no uselessly bizarre collection of unrelated words.
These are poems written from the heart. They are invitations to feel what she feels.
They are warmly readable, both in silence and in your own voice.
These poems will lead you on some trails you may not have visited.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
A poet is a “maker”
…and it doesn’t have to rhyme…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Oct 8, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
…or grab a flashlight…
Book review:
Spoon River Anthology
by Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950)
New York: The Macmillan Company, c1914-1944, publ. 1967
306 pages
The reputation of Spoon River Anthology is indisputable.
The reality is a matter for each reader.
For my taste, this is an exotic but deadened miscellany that tirelessly revisits a few themes. I won’t say there’s no inspiration, but you need a miner’s headlamp to find it here and there.
Many of the folks who are pushing up daisies near the Spoon River just weren’t really terribly interesting people when they were alive.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Comanche Empire
the other story of the American West…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Sep 26, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
the doctor wants to help you,
you good with that?
Book review:
Black Man in a White Coat:
A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine
by Dr. Damon Tweedy
New York: Picador, 2015
294 pages
There is only one mystery about Black Man in a White Coat. The mystery existed for me before I read it. I had a more informed understanding of the mystery after I read it. Why is Tweedy’s story so damnably true?
Tweedy is a black doctor in a world with mostly white doctors, a world with too many people who disdain black doctors or don’t want to be treated by them.
Read Dr. Tweedy’s candid and insightful story of his own life—professional and personal—walk a mile in his shoes, and then tell a friend how you feel about your own life.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Scarlet Letter
the beating hearts…by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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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