by Richard Subber | Oct 14, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Books Commentary, Joys of reading, Language
a one-man library…
Book review:
Literary Life: A Second Memoir
by Larry McMurtry (1936-2021)
Simon & Schuster, 2009
McMurtry moves me to want more, read more….
It’s incredibly easy to read McMurtry—I’ve read Books: A Memoir, Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, and now Literary Life. It seems, repeatedly, that he writes in an off-hand way; thoughts and scenes and chapters can end very abruptly. Yet, the work seems polished. The prose is spare, as Larry acknowledges.
I am titillated by his familiar references to so many authors and works. I would love to be a “man of letters,” as McMurtry claims to be. The draw for me is McMurtry’s immersion in books. I would be thrilled to own 200,000 books. Desperately thrilled.
I’m pretty sure that McMurtry’s passionate engagement with books and authors is a believable lifestyle. His many references to re-reading books is a believable commitment.
I have for some time, since I retired, envisioned taking the pledge to read the entire oeuvre of an author I like. Now I am moved to read McMurtry’s books. I plan to re-read Books and Literary Life to get clues about how to read them. I’ll consider reading his works in order by pub date, except for the Lonesome Dove and Berrybender tetralogies, of course.
I don’t think I’ll be disappointed.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Hag-Seed
by Margaret Atwood…it ain’t Shakespeare
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 74 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 12, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
ballare…
daily
The arrow of time flies high
and low and ever on,
and sometimes slow,
time creeps, betimes,
a pause is not unknown…
My time’s my own,
I guard it
when there is no room for dancing…
July 12, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
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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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Oct 7, 2025 | Language, Reviews of other poets, Tidbits
you can make sunshine…
“…make sunshine in a shady place.”
from The Sketches of Louisa May Alcott
by Louisa May Alcott
New York: Ironweed Press, Inc., 2001
p. 250
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Movie review: A Doll’s House
Henrik Ibsen’s classic on abuse…
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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 | Oct 4, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Language
no dreariness here…
Book review:
The Jungle Book, Vol. 1
by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, 1893, 1978
279 pages
“ ‘There is none like to me!’ says the Cub in the
pride of his earliest kill;
But the jungle is large and the Cub he is small.
Let him think and be still.”
Maxims of Baloo, from “Kaa’s Hunting” in The Jungle Book
Kipling created continuing dramatic tension in the framework of rectitude in The Jungle Book, Vol. 1.
Two of my favorite stories are “Kaa’s Hunting” and “Toomai of the Elephants.” The characters are well wrought, they live the stories, the drama is personal.
Welcome the joy of storytelling—casual, formal, the stories offered new to those who like stories, offered again to those who like stories.
In Kipling there is no dreariness. There is excitement, danger, leaf-eating, aspiration, brotherhood, and triumph.
If you read it twice, you get more.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
“Fishering,” by Brian Doyle
…what meets the eye…
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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 | Oct 2, 2025 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
The Book of Days
The dawn’s early light can be pleasure enough for the whole day.
There are words enough to tell the story of “the temptation of day to come.”
It is my delight to write some of them for your delectation.
Above all
A sunrise so paintable it brushes away
my faint recall of others I have seen…
A sunrise, surely, cannot be
the best of all dawns
since that first one,
but, still,
this startling canopy of latent reds,
and dappled puffs of barely more than air,
is there, blushing,
billowing itself to demean all rivals.
This sky high bloom,
chromatic, marbled,
vastly still in each moment,
paused in fleeting time
to tempt a longer view,
teases my delight
with every hint of lasting grace
that all too soon will fade
to drab wists in blue air.
Above all, I see
this flirtation of the elements,
this wanton splash of radiant sky
that kisses my eyes,
but won’t commit
to be there for me tomorrow.
February 21, 2017
My poem “Above all” was published in my sixth collection of 73 poems, Above all: Poems of dawn and more. You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”
My poem “Above all” was published in my second collection of 47 poems, Seeing far: Selected poems. You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”
Published in the Fall 2018 issue of miller’s pond
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
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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 | Sep 30, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
first thoughts…
Contemplation
What did the shuffling ape
think when she saw
for the first time
a whole tree,
as it stood alone
beyond the edge of the wood?
Did she think of shape for the first time?
Did she think “bigger than me”?
Did she conjure a new word?
Did she imagine not climbing it,
and shuffling on
to where the berries grow?
Did she point to it when her mate arrived?
Did she think “I move,
I am not that thing”?
June 18, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 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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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.
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