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 japan. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux

›

When, some thirty years later, Paul Theroux repeated the journey that he had described in The Great Railway Bazaar, he declared travel writi...

Friday, August 26, 2011

Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel An Artist Of The Floating World

›

Superficially, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel An Artist Of The Floating World seems to present a gentle observation of manners. There’s a daughter ...

Thursday, July 14, 2011

The Housekeeper and The Professor by Yoko Ogawa

›

Yoko Ogawa has written a novel called The Housekeeper + The Professor. At least that’s what it says on the front. On the back it’s title rep...

Monday, May 10, 2010

The Woman In The Dunes by Kobo Abe

›

Novels in translation always present at least twice their share of pitfalls for the reviewer, or even the reader. A translated novel has to ...

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Sir Phoebus’s Ma by Zoë Teale

›

Zoë Teale’s Sir Phoebus’s Ma is more of a travelogue than a novel. It’s a series of impressionistic reflections, experienced during a year i...

Sunday, September 23, 2007

A memory of Kyoto

›

It’s often that chance encounters, the unplanned events, linger, long after the excursions and the sights of a particular trip have faded. I...

›

Home

View web version

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.

View my complete profile