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 colonial. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

The Anarchy by William Dalrymple

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Occasionally, quite rarely, in fact, one reads a book so powerful that it is impossible to review, at least until the dust its disturbance h...

Thursday, March 8, 2012

A Division of the Spoils by Paul Scott

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Start with two major religions, Islam and Hinduism. To a history of one ruling the other, add the complication of a determinedly, in part ev...

Friday, February 24, 2012

The Towers Of Silence by Paul Scott

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The Towers Of Silence, the third of Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet, is very much a novel about women. Set in India in the 1940s, the war impinges ...

Friday, February 17, 2012

The Day of The Scorpion by Paul Scott

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Just as history can’t be undone, innocence, once lost, can’t be retrieved. If history would allow, I would dearly love to read Paul Scott’s ...

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Jewel In The Crown by Paul Scott

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Paul Scott’s The Jewel In The Crown is the first of his tetralogy of novels on British India. These really were the last days of the Raj. An...

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Vermeer´s Hat by Timothy Brook

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Vermeer’s Hat by Timothy Brook is not really about Vermeer, or hats, or art for that matter. It’s a book about globalization sixteenth centu...

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

A Grain Of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong’o

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Returning to a masterpiece to re-examine its brilliance is always a risky business. There is always the threat of disappointment, a gradual ...

Monday, October 20, 2008

The Heart Of The Matter by Graham Greene

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Over forty years ago a new English teacher at my school answered a question asked by an eager student. The question was, “What do you think ...

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Before The Knife by Carolyn Slaughter

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In Before The Knife Carolyn Slaughter describes her childhood, a fraught, anxious prelude to an adulthood that continued to suffer from its ...

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Sukarno, A Political Biography by J. D. Legge: nationalism revisited.

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I don’t read a lot of history, contemporary or otherwise, and when I do, it is usually in the area of political economy. In recent years, fo...

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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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