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 criticism. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

United States - Essays 1952-1992 by Gore Vidal.

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I remember watching Gore Vidal on television, usually on one of those talk shows he seems to view with contempt. He seemed to be a living op...

Monday, March 28, 2022

G. F. Watts by G. K. Chesterton

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GK meets GF sounds like the title of one of those mid-twentieth century albums when a producer with an eye for a buck teamed up some ancient...

Thursday, December 2, 2021

Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag

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Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag was first published in 1961. It is hard in 2020, to accept that this was almost 60 years ago, espec...

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Like Life – the catalogue by Luke Syson, Sheena Wagstaff, Emerson Bowyer, and Brinda Kumar

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Like Life was a 2018 sculpture exhibition at New York's Met Breuer Museum. Its catalogue of the same name not only illustrates many of t...

Friday, October 12, 2012

One Hundred Best Books by John Cowper Powys

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In his One Hundred Best Books, John Cowper Powys confidently selects a reading list for all humanity. Written in 1916 by a man already in hi...

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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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