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

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

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Dreams From My Father is Barack Obama’s early autobiography, written before he went to law school. It details his early years and basically ...

Surprise, surprise - ADDA with Christian Lindberg and Roland Pontinen

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Concert programmes can often appear rather conventional at first sight. A well-known Romantic symphony in the second half, preceded by an eq...

Saturday, February 18, 2023

ADDA hosts Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations in Elements and Furies

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Sometimes a program does not seem attractive. Since I generally prefer more modern sounds, particularly contemporary music, a program that l...

Friday, February 17, 2023

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stewart

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Douglas Stewart won the Booker Prize for Fiction with Shuggie Bain, an autobiographical novel about a child coping with an alcoholic parent....

It’s all in the detail – Madama Butterfly in Valencia, December 2021

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Puccini’s Madame Butterfly is a very well-known, much loved, and indeed popular opera. The genre is replete with femmes fatales , Butterfly,...

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

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Anne Bront ë’ s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a much-reviewed and well-known classic novel. So can a novel that is a hundred and fifty yea...

Snow by John Banville

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John Banville’s Snow was resplendent at number one best seller in the airport bookstore. At the time, I hardly noticed, since I was immediat...

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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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