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.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
“…watchers in the crystal sphere…”
”Night watch,” a poem
“…friends who pass the time…”
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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 | Nov 12, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History
…where the buffalo stopped roaming…
Book review:
Crazy Horse
by Larry McMurtry (1936-2021)
Bibliophile, novelist, Pulitzer Prize winner
New York: Penguin Group, 1999 (Penguin Lives series)
148 pages
Apparently it is Larry McMurtry’s goal in life to avoid writing everything I don’t like.
Crazy Horse is a gem: crisp, appealing, well-informed, in McMurtry’s signature style—crafted words, no nonsense, literate. This is a candid assessment of the life and times of Ta-Shunka-Witco (“His horse is crazy”) (c1840-1877).
If there had been no relentless assault against the American Indians by white America and its government, Crazy Horse might have been an anonymous, eccentric figure among the Oglala Sioux. His compatriots probably understood him about as well as we do—that is, not much.
From several points of view, in the middle of the 19th century and now, Crazy Horse was a loner and a lone eagle. McMurtry does a commendable job of trying to see the world as Crazy Horse saw it. The world as Crazy Horse wanted it to be was shriveling around him during his entire life.
It’s too bad that Crazy Horse wasn’t born in an earlier, less contentious, more agreeable time. It’s too bad that he couldn’t simply have made his home where the buffalo roamed.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Lost History of Stars
Dave Boling’s delicate story
about a brutal war
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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 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.
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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
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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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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)
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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
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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 | Oct 26, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Reflections
a “start feeling good” book
Book review:
Lessons in Chemistry
by Bonnie Garmus (b1957)
New York: Doubleday, 2022
390 pages
Lessons in Chemistry is not a “feel good” book.
It’s a “start feeling good” book.
Of course, there’s a message, and there’s a good story, and the message doesn’t get in the way of the story, and the story doesn’t obscure the message. (Guys, everybody can be a scientist, no matter which bathroom they use).
I think I need to mention that I’m not a dog person, so I confess that Six-Thirty isn’t my favorite character, but he’s more human than some people I know, so he’s important. Just think about this: maybe dogs can talk, but they choose not to.
Lessons in Chemistry is 390 pages of telling the centuries-old truths about the failures and the bitterness of the culture of male domination.
Some readers may think it’s all too much (and the “Supper At Six” TV show is a bit much), but the story evolves into a good story, and we need more inspiration to understand that some girl baby born somewhere yesterday may have what it takes to be the best scientist ever.
Elizabeth Zott has the words.
She says:
“Let’s get started.”
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: “Bartleby, the Scrivener”
Loneliness beyond understanding…
by Herman Melville
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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by Richard Subber | Oct 19, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History
the first Army nurses…
Book review:
The Nurses: Episodes 1-16
by Janet M. Kovarik, 2017
The Nurses tells some of the other stories about the American Civil War. You probably know about Dorothea Dix, the courageous activist who became Superintendent of Army Nurses during the war.
The Nurses invites you to understand the lives and the spirit of the women who rushed to serve under her leadership. Emmelda Poole and Livinia Atwater are two marvelous women created in Kovarik’s imagination, but they are real enough.
The author writes pleasing stories about believable women who helped their fellow man in ways only women could have done in the middle of the 19th century. Women like Emmelda and Livinia offered to suffering soldiers the kind of loving care that the doctors and the surgeons couldn’t or wouldn’t provide.
If you’re a Civil War fan, dig in to The Nurses.
If you just like good storytelling and remarkably credible dialogue, dig in to The Nurses.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: Address Unknown
A friendship corrupted by Nazi hatred in WWII
by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor
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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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