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 sixties. Show all posts

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...

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Another Part Of The Wood by Beryl Bainbridge

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Another Part Of The Wood by Beryl Bainbridge first appeared in 1968. It was a significant year. The book’s vintage shows through via passing...

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Life At The Top by John Braine

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After recently re-reading John Braine’s Room at the Top, I went On Chesil Beach, courtesy of Ian McEwan. Without doubt the latter is a maste...

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Masterpiece: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

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The fly cover of On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan describes the book as “a short novel of remarkable depth by a writer at the height of his pow...

Sunday, December 16, 2007

A social climber, our Joe - A review of A Room At The Top by John Braine

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It’s fifty years since A Room At The Top first appeared. Against a backdrop of post-war Britain, a period when people really did believe tha...

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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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