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

Saturday, September 6, 2008

The Heart Of The Country by Fay Weldon

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For two thirds of its length, The Heart Of The Country by Fay Weldon is a brilliant, surprising, humorous, bitchy study of adopted and origi...

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 ...

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, September 1, 2008

2030 The Lottery by Peter Moore

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2030 The Lottery by Peter Moore is a pseudo-Orwellian poke into a possible British future. In contrast to Orwell, who placed his all-powerfu...

Please Sir, There’s A Snake In The Art Room by Keith Geddes

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In Please Sir, There’s A Snake In The Art Room author Keith Geddes has his principal character, Tom Thorne, address a series of challenges. ...
Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

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Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a compelling portrait of people on the downside of a dystopia. Like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Ta...
Tuesday, August 19, 2008

A Walk Up Fifth Avenue by Bernard Levin

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Bernard Levin begins A Walk Up Fifth Avenue with three quotations from descriptions of New York City. These date from 1916, 1929 and 1949 an...
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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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