by Richard Subber | Jan 10, 2026 | Theater and play reviews
unique intensity…
Movie review:
The Guns of Navarone
The Guns of Navarone (1961, not rated, 158 minutes) was made more than 60 years ago and it got 7 Academy Award nominations. It’s obvious that Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn had a good time.
The actors and actresses act, they tell a credible story, you feel your heart beating more than once, there’s not too much blood—that’s how they made good war movies in 1961.
The thing that becomes obvious after several viewings is that there is a unique intensity in each character, many axes to grind, many personal burdens to bear. Each character is fighting his or her own war. The story is rich.
And you know how it ends.
You won’t be surprised to learn that there’s one German officer who’s more or less a good guy. Thanks, Hollywood.
It’s a gritty war movie without too much gore (nearly everybody dies after getting shot once).
The Guns of Navarone satisfies, it piques, it gets personal, it has abundant highs and lows, and the good guys win.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shakespeare’s Wife
Germaine Greer went overboard a bit…
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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 | Jan 6, 2026 | Reflections, Tidbits
be thankful for more than the leftovers…
“They [the godless Yankees] had…
invented a holiday called Thanksgiving,
which Ruby had only recently got news of,
but from what she gathered its features to be,
she found it to contain the mark of a tainted culture.
To be thankful on just the one day.”
from Cold Mountain
by Charles Frazier (b1950)
New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997
356 pages
Winner of the U. S. National Book Award for Fiction
p. 141
Ruby always set her mind straight.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
“The beginning is always today.”
(quote, Mary Shelley)
so get started…
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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 | Jan 4, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, History, Human Nature
the work of mortal men and women…
Book review:
The Rise of Christianity:
A Sociologist Reconsiders History
by Rodney Stark (1934-2022)
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996
246 pages
The rise of Christianity in the centuries after the life of Jesus relied on the work of mortal women and men.
Stark offers a patient and compelling description of how Christianity spread from Nazareth in Galilee and became a powerful force throughout the known Greco-Roman world before Emperor Constantine embraced the faith early in the 4th century AD.
This is not a “religious” book. The words “bible,” “hymn,” “communion,” “priest,” “Pope,” and “prayer” are not in the index. The Rise of Christianity acknowledges but does not dwell on the doctrinal aspects of the Christian faith in the early years.
I wouldn’t presume to summarize Stark’s account of the sociological, emotional, and political factors that enabled the rise of Christianity.
You may find it surprising and valuable to know that the new religion appealed to both the rich and the poor, that women were the majority of first converts, that women held leadership positions in the early churches, and that the Christian commitment to help one another notably enabled the Christian communities to do better in surviving the plagues that killed so many people in the early centuries (the pantheons of non-Christian gods were conspicuously unhelpful).
Stark says: “Finally, what Christianity gave to its converts was nothing less than their humanity. In this sense, virtue was its own reward.” (p215)
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 52 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 | Dec 30, 2025 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
thinking it over…
think about it
We’re walking, slow.
What’s he thinking?
What’s her fleeting joy?
Maybe they ask the same of me.
Are we really different?
I’m bigger,
they have growing to do.
I can see out the window,
they see so many things
for the first time.
I remember last week’s party,
they will re-learn the fun
of blowing out the candles.
I can ride a horse,
they can see a horse where the chair is.
I wish I could stay longer,
they will welcome my return…
…but for now, we climb the bosky trail,
hand in hand, we laugh together,
we chase that squirrel with our eyes,
we wonder:
what’s he thinking?
what’s his fleeting joy?
maybe he’s asking the same of us.
September 7, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
–
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 | Dec 27, 2025 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
…always more to learn…
“…people whose lives
have been made various by learning…”
Mary Ann Evans “George Eliot” (1819-1880)
English novelist, an icon in Victorian literature
from Silas Marner, p. 24
It’s so easy to think that learning is only about knowledge.
Learning changes lives and living. I don’t mind thinking that what I have learned in my life, and the learning that I continue to enjoy, has made me more various than I otherwise might have been.
You could say that variousness is the spice of life…some people might say it another way…
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: American Colonies
So many and so much
came before the Pilgrims
by Alan Taylor
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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 | Dec 18, 2025 | Tidbits
ain’t it the truth…
“It does not require many words
to speak the truth.”
Chief Joseph or Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt (“Thunder rolling down the mountain”) (1840-1904)
Chief of the Wallowa of the Nez Perce (Niimiipu)
Let’s keep telling the truth about what’s going on in America.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
A Farewell to Arms (book review)
classic Ernest Hemingway
with relentlessly realistic dialogue…
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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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