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

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Anglo Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson

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This particular reviewer rarely writes a negative review. If it didn’t communicate with me, there ’ s no need to assume that it will not com...

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Cassado and Chopin in Alfas del Pi, Stravinsky and Elgar in Alicante

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Just over a year ago, it would not have been anything special to declare that it had been possible to attend four quality concerts in this...

Friday, March 19, 2021

Capital and Ideology by Thomas Piketty

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Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Ideology is a monumental achievement. Its scope is vast, its size is daunting, its scholarship and vision bot...

Monday, March 15, 2021

The Green Road by Ann Enright

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Ann Enright’s The Green Road, eventually, is a family saga, but its characters cover a large part of the globe before joining forces in th...

Thursday, March 11, 2021

Costa Blanca Arts Update, Claudi Arimany, Eduard Sanchez, Joaquin Palomares, Elena Segura

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There are not many concerts around these days. In addition, audiences are reluctant to attend and the travel and accommodation restriction...

Saturday, March 6, 2021

Within A Budding Grove – In Search of Lost Time 2 – Marcel Proust

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There is a genre in modern fiction called “Coming of age”, designed presumably to appeal to the “Young adult” whose type ought to feature am...

Monday, March 1, 2021

Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers by Paul Rosenfeld

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Tastes change. Fashions change. Presumptions, through whose refracting pris ms each new age interprets its aesthetics, also change, but u...

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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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