by Richard Subber | Dec 12, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Reflections
be a willing reader…
Book review:
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery
Alison Anderson, trans.
New York: Europa Editions, 2006
325 pages
The Elegance of the Hedgehog is a logophile’s book.
Really.
If you can read this book without keeping your dictionary close at hand, I want to shake your hand.
Barbery has written a stunning first-person interaction of two characters who could easily be separate books. (Distinguishing fonts makes it easy to know who’s talking.)
The Hedgehog is Renée Michel, an almost unflappable and serenely superior person who pretends to be a simple old concierge in a building almost filled with rich folks who don’t care what she thinks about. She thinks about plenty that would never occur to them.
The second primary persona is Paloma, a barely-out-of-her-tweens girl who thinks she wants to commit suicide but lives an overwhelmingly fantastic life in her head and becomes Renée’s friend.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog is a literate, penetrating, philosophical, compassionate revelation of two great minds who connect and spiral into ever more fancies for the willing reader’s delight.
Be a willing reader.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Girl at the Lion d’Or
Sebastian Faulks is tenaciously literate,
richly Gallic…
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 | Nov 16, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading
a new take on the Western…
Book review:
The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard
New York: William Morris, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2004
528 pages
I’m late to the game of reading Elmore Leonard, and I confess right here that I’m not a big fan of the broadly defined “Western” genre, excepting of course the “must reads” like “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” and “To Build a Fire” and “The Call of the Wild.”
Even so, I’m engaged with Leonard’s short story style, and I plan to return to The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard—his 30 Western shorts including possibly familiar titles like “Three-Ten to Yuma” and “Moment of Vengeance” and “Only Good Ones.”
The prose is direct, realistic, and dialogue-rich, and there is legitimate suspense that gives individuality to each story.
Try a few.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
“…watchers in the crystal sphere…”
”Night watch,” a poem
“…friends who pass the time…”
–
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 | Oct 31, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Language
sassy, salty, and singular
Book review:
The Kingdom of the Kid:
Growing Up In The Long-Lost Hamptons
by Geoff Gehman (b1958)
State University of New York Press, Albany, NY 2013
238 pages
I stepped outside my comfort zone to read Geoff Gehman’s memoir about some of his childhood years in the “long-lost Hamptons.” I’m glad I did.
If you have a particular point of view about memoirs, either for or against, try to forget it and pick up The Kingdom of the Kid, and just settle in for the ride.
This is more than a prosaic romp through childhood memories, it is a paean celebrating a child’s-eye-view of life.
Gehman is a writer who likes to “linger over words,” that’s my kind of writer. His prose, his stories, his memories…sassy, salty and singular.
Gehman is a poet, too. Repeatedly, he offers lush insight into his industrious youth, his friendships with the young and the old, his affinity for the place, the “long-lost Hamptons” where Geoff and his pals spent the good old days.
He describes the scene as he observed mourners in the Wainscott Cemetery:
“…I sat on my bike in the school parking lot, shaded by grand sycamores, and watched visitors treat the cemetery with reverence. They placed flowers by graves, prayed on their knees, cried on their backs. They stared at the sky, held séances in broad daylight, eavesdropped on eternity.
“Those pilgrims taught me the morality of mortality. Without asking anyone I learned to walk around the stones, to respect the dead as if they were alive.”
In every chapter he offers another little piece of his heart.
The Kingdom of the Kid is good reading. Real good.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Bridges of Madison County
If you’re looking for
highly stoked eroticism
and high-rolling lives
that throw off sparks when they touch,
look elsewhere.
by Robert Waller
–
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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Oct 29, 2023 | Human Nature, Joys of reading, My poetry, Poetry
remember your first time?
Learning
There is duty in learning, yes,
but the gentle passions of curiosity
can turn the page
and move the pencil
and light the quest
to learn more.
There is labor in learning, yes,
but the rush of exaltation
excites the calculus of understanding,
spills pride across the page,
pushes the pencil to the next line,
wakens the will to persist,
tightens the fingers
that write the strange new truths,
leans into learning
a bit more,
and then more…
July 11, 2023
Inspired by Die Hausaufgabe (The Homework), an 1893 painting by Simon Glücklich (1863-1943)
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Proud Tower
…it’s a lot more than a history book…
by Barbara Tuchman
–
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.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Sep 7, 2023 | Joys of reading, Language, My poetry, Poetry
…let the chorus turn you…
Symphony
A new book
somehow sings a siren’s song,
a symphony of words
that make a new tune,
such delight to open any page,
and hear the mezzo’s lilt,
the soprano’s tear-stained kyrie,
and nod as the basso
closes a chapter
with words worth repeating,
and let the chorus turn you
to another page,
for more words
that suddenly are not strangers,
such old words
that make a new song.
Rumford, RI
May 30, 2023
Let yourself watch your 12-year-old granddaughter with a new book…does this poem occur to you?
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
The Scarlet Letter, victim of Hollywood
the Nathaniel Hawthorne version is best
–
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 | Aug 3, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading
a storytelling style…
Book review:
A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles (b1964)\
New York: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House, Inc., 2016
462 pages
A Gentleman in Moscow has an almost simplistic plot line: a nobleman is condemned to perpetual house arrest, living in an attic room in a fine hotel in Moscow in the 1920s.
What Towles brings to the party is an almost casual storytelling style embedded in a fecundity of warmly engaging words and people.
It’s simply true that I was drawn to continue reading about Count Alexander Rostov and Nina.
You can imagine how the story ends. I could.
Caveat: Towles didn’t need 462 pages to tell this story in the best way.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
“Boil up” and other good manners…
The “Hobo Ethical Code” is worth a quick read.
–
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”
* * * * * *
