Articles written by Philip Spires - Page 3

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About me - Philip Spires

I was born in 1952 in Wakefield, UK and spent my first ten years in Sharlston, then a mining village, followed by eight in Crofton, a mile nearer Wakefield. I went to London University, obtaining a BSc from Imperial College and a PGCE from King's. After two

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Arts & Humanities > British Literature Book reviews: Saville, by David Storey: 1 of 1
A reflection on Saville by David Storey Saville won the Booker Prize in 1976. In such a vast novel it is inevitable that the pace will occasionally quicken and slacken, but a book like this can be read over weeks, almost dipped into as the passing phases of Colin's life unfold. David Story was born in Wakefield, and so was I... More..
Arts & Humanities > American Literature Book reviews: Breathing Lessons, by Anne Tyler: 1 of 1
Anne Tyler's Breathing Lessons is a giant of a book, a giant because of the way in which it gently wraps you into its character's world and allows you to feel their lives being lived. It's a giant of a book in a very small world, a world inhabited by Maggie and her husband, Ira, and, it seems, by precious little else. They a... More..
Entertainment > Concert Reviews Concert reviews: Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra, La Vila Joiosa, Comminidad Valenciana, Spain, January 2008: 1 of 1
To live in a Mediterranean climate with year-round access to the sea, good food and wine, plus magnificent scenery would be enough. To have access to three symphony orchestra venues within ten kilometres of the front door is a priceless bonus. The Palau in Altea is long established, whilst the Auditori Mediterrania in La Nuc... More..
Entertainment > Concert Reviews Concert reviews: Berlin Mendelssohn Trio, Palau Altea, Altea, Spain: 1 of 1
One of the great, even reassuring, things about what the CD shops ignorantly label "Classical Music" is its freedom, its liberality, its democratic principles. Yes, it has its stars. Yes, it has its forms and conventions. But in "Classical Music" these aspects never dominate. The music is always the prime focus. Anyone can l... More..
Arts & Humanities > British Literature Book reviews: After These Things, by Jenny Diski: 1 of 1
In After These things Jenny Diski accomplishes an almost impossible task. She starts with a well known story, and thus a plot ready declared, a story that claims history and yet is read as myth. She reworks it, gives shape, form and thought to characters we think we might already know, and then puts words in their mouths. Sh... More..
Arts & Humanities > British Literature Book reviews: Life at the Top, by John Braine: 1 of 1
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 masterpiece, whereas the former seems to be a little too reliant on its contemporary setting, its social mores, its finely tuned appreciation of social class to be considered more than "of it... More..
Arts & Humanities > International Writers & Literature Book reviews: Fasting, Feasting, by Anita Desai: 1 of 1
In her novel, Fasting, Feasting, Anita Desai eventually accomplishes what many writers attempt and then fail to achieve. She uses light touch, simple language, uncomplicated structure, but at the same time addresses some very big issues and makes a point. Uma and Arun are children of Mamapapa, the apparently indivisible comm... More..
Arts & Humanities > British Literature Book reviews: The Millstone, by Margaret Drabble: 1 of 1
Rosamund Stacey is the first person narrator of her own story in the Millstone by Margaret Drabble. Rosamund is a single mother nothing strange about that, perhaps, at least in a twenty-first century Britain where now half of births are outside of marriage. But in the early 1960s, when The Millstone was written, unmarried mo... More..
Arts & Humanities > British Literature Book reviews: On the Yankee Station, by William Boyd: 1 of 1
On The Yankee Station by William Boyd is a series of short stories, the longest of which provides the title for the set. This particular story is a superb piece of short fiction, much more than a short story, confronting, in less than twenty-five pages, several big issues and, at the same time, drawing its characters in cons... More..
Arts & Humanities > International Writers & Literature Book reviews: Mukiwa, by Peter Godwin: 1 of 1
Peter Godwin certainly has a story to tell. It's a story of an idyllic, if unusual childhood, a disrupted but eventually immensely successful education, military service and then two careers, one in law, planned but aborted, and then one in journalism, discovered almost by default. Listed like this these elements might sound... More..