Philip Spires commonplace book

I have kept a commonplace book for many years. It's a place where scraps of impressions are filed for future reflection. It's not a diary, it's just a mental scrapbook, concentrating on book reviews, concert reviews, visual arts and some occasional pieces on travel. It is also a place where I occasionally reflect on what I write. Details of my books can be found at http://www.philipspires.co.uk

Showing posts with label Ireland. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

The Green Road by Ann Enright

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Ann Enright’s The Green Road, eventually, is a family saga, but its characters cover a large part of the globe before joining forces in th...

Monday, December 20, 2021

Light of Evening by Edna O’Brien

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The Light of Evening by Edna O ’ Brien is a deceptively complex book. It deals with relationships between two women, Dilly and Eleanora, w...

Monday, September 27, 2021

Last Stories by William Trevor

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Painters know that the viewer’s gaze can be tricked. Perhaps led is the better word, for this deception’s aim is merely to communicate mor...

Monday, March 15, 2021

The Green Road by Ann Enright

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Ann Enright’s The Green Road, eventually, is a family saga, but its characters cover a large part of the globe before joining forces in th...

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Light of Evening by Edna O’Brien

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The Light of Evening by Edna O ’ Brien is a deceptively complex book. It deals with relationships between two women, Dilly and Eleanora, who...

Friday, July 10, 2020

Two Lives by William Trevor

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In Two Lives William Trevor offers two stories – Reading Turgenev and My House In Umbria. They are not mere stories, however, and read like...

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Fools Of Fortune by William Trevor

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Generally, genre thrillers are books without thrills. Someone gets killed. Turn the page and it happens again to someone else. There’s a cha...

Friday, December 18, 2009

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

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In The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry tells a story set in Ireland. As is often the case, this story set in Ireland is very much a story ...

Saturday, September 6, 2008

The South by Colm Toibin

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The South by Colm Toibin is an intense, though fitful chronicle of a woman’s life, a life as yet incomplete. It presents a patchwork of deta...

Monday, February 25, 2008

The Heather Blazing by Colm Toibin

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The Heather Blazing by Colm Toibin is a deeply emotional, deeply moving book. It’s the story of Eamon Redmond, a complex man, grown on tende...

Friday, December 7, 2007

A review of The Gathering by Anne Enright

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Anne Enright’s The Gathering deserves every ounce of praise it has received, and perhaps a bit more. It’s a family history of the Hegartys, ...

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About Me

philipspires: I was born in Wakefield and was brought up in Sharslton, a mining Village. I went to London University and then became a maths teacher, working initially as a volunteer teacher in Kenya. I spent sixteen years in London, in Balham and Islington. In 1992, I left Britain for Brunei and then Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. I currently live in La Nucia, near Benidorm in Spain. I am interested in the relationship between nature and nurture, birthright and experience. Themes of culture and identity and their relation to economic and social roles underpin my writing. What we are born into relates to what we become, but we are rarely in control. What others do, our interests and intellects and the way we choose to earn a living, all of these shape us into what we become. It may be that culture is the sum of all assumptions that others make on our behalf, whereas identity represents our reactions to them. I did a PhD on the effects of education in economic development in the Philippines. I was President of Alfas del Pi Music Society for twelve years.

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