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

Monday, October 26, 2009

Restoration by Rose Tremain

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If I finish a book and declare it to be one of the best I have ever read, I normally wait a few days before writing a review. If my opinion ...

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Sacred Country by Rose Tremain

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Rose Tremain’s Sacred Country is a novel set in Swaithey, a small place in Suffolk in the rural east of England. It’s a long way to a big ci...

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Pianist Daniel del Pino plays in La Nucia

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A few days ago I wrote a piece about a Russian pianist who successfully mixed so-called ‘classical’ music with jazz on the same programme. I...

Monday, September 14, 2009

Piano recital by Elena Lasco, classical artist meets jazz virtuoso

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During a recital some years ago, a pianist introduced a Chopin Impromptu by describing its improvisatory essence, likening it to a snapshot ...

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith

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In her novel The Autograph Man, Zadie Smith takes a comic tour of several aspects of twenty-first century life. Her foci are celebrity-worsh...

Monday, June 29, 2009

Pop culture: popular or populist? An unpopular view.

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In a recent interview Fergal Sharkey, erstwhile Northern Ireland pop singer, lamented the fact that most recording artists receive only very...

Thursday, June 25, 2009

The Master by Colm Toibin

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In The Master, Colm Toibin offers the reader a style and content quite different from his other novels. In a sense, the book is an act of ho...

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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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