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…
* * * * * *
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: American Colonies
So many and so much
came before the Pilgrims
by Alan Taylor
–
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”
* * * * * *
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.
* * * * * *
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
A Farewell to Arms (book review)
classic Ernest Hemingway
with relentlessly realistic dialogue…
–
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 | Dec 13, 2025 | Theater and play reviews
we’re talking heart and soul…
Movie review:
The Hustler
Okay, first things first: the pool table action in The Hustler (1961, not rated, 134 minutes) is rather tame. Most of the shots are obscurely impossible, but successful.
Paul Newman as “Fast Eddie” Felson, the “hustler” who finally wins the big game for big stakes, is, of course, iconic. His character is repetitive and becomes predictable: “I can beat him” isn’t a line of script, it’s a refrain.
Jackie Gleason’s role has name recognition (as “Minnesota Fats”) but it is two-dimensional and secondary. George C. Scott (as Bert Gordon) is a stereotype with a bankroll.
Everybody smokes too much. Ugh!
You should try The Hustler again to take another look at Piper Laurie (as Sarah Packard). She is the largely unheralded heavy hitter in this film. She is the foil for Newman’s thrashing self-doubt. She is the paragon of sensitivity and desperately loving kindness that the men in this tragedy barely hope to become. She speaks truth to gutless macho men. She was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress.
Newman and Gleason and Scott are the action in The Hustler.
Piper Laurie is the heart and soul.
* * * * * *
Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Who Built America?
…including people
who got their hands dirty
by Christopher Clark and Nancy Hewitt
–
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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Dec 4, 2025 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Human Nature, Reflections
the far side of yourself…
Book review:
The Things They Carried
by Tim O’Brien (b1946)
New York: Broadway Books, 1990
273 pages
Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam war veteran.
If you served in the Vietnam war, you have a perspective for reading The Things They Carried.
If you didn’t go to Vietnam, you have a different perspective.
If you weren’t born until after the war ended, you have a different perspective.
Tim O’Brien speaks to you, read his words any way you want.
All of us are still carrying some of the things we carried in those years.
Can anyone point to feelings that haven’t changed since then?
Whether you’re a veteran or not, O’Brien invites you to get “in touch with the far side of yourself” (p. 123).
The Things They Carried is about burdens and our capacity to accept them.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: To Serve Them All My Days
by R. F. Delderfield
A beloved teacher,
you know this story…
–
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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Nov 29, 2025 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
we made our present…
“…if we persevere and remain generous of heart,
we may be granted
a moment of supreme lucidity—
a moment in which all that has happened to us
suddenly comes into focus
as a necessary course of events…”
from A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles (b1964)
New York: Penguin Books, 2016
462 pages
p. 441
* * * * * *
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
84, Charing Cross Road (book review)
Helene Hanff, on reading good books…
–
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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Nov 23, 2025 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, Human Nature, Politics, Power and inequality
Talk to someone “on the other side”…
Book review:
Uncivil Agreement:
How Politics Became Our Identity
by Lilliana Mason
Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2018
183 pages
Mason offers penetrating analysis of the partisanship that is driving America deeper into political chaos. The evidence of her sincere, fact-based examination is that she conspicuously does not offer a “how to fix it” conclusion.
This is academic prose—not easy and not entertaining. It is, rather, abundant data, knowledgeably organized and carefully illuminated. Our national sociopolitical chaos is deeply rooted in human nature and it’s frightening when exposed to conscious consideration.
Uncivil Agreement tells the despairing story: too much of our political wrangling and competition has little if anything to do with “issues” and “policies” and laws. Too much of our partisan political motivation is essentially human emotions—fear, anger, and antipathy to people who are outside one’s own group.
National political figures like Trump and Sanders and others are—deliberately or inadvertently—stoking angers and fears instead of inviting citizens to vote responsibly for candidates and policies that will benefit them and also benefit the citizens of our country. Too much explosive partisanship is group-oriented (“my group” vs. “other groups”) and reinforced by social interactions and overlapping group identities that not only exclude but also demonize the “other” groups. It’s not simply racial prejudice, but that’s a big part of it.
Mason provides essential understanding of what’s going on in the fearful tumult of American politics. If you read only the final chapter (“Can We Fix It?”), you will learn much of value.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Literary Life: A Second Memoir…book review
Larry McMurtry’s love affair with books
–
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”
* * * * * *
