Blogcritics Author: Philip Spires

Book Review: Towards Asmara by Thomas Keneally

Philip Spires — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:27:21 EDT

"Towards Asmara" by Thomas Keneally travels through Eritrea's war of independence, a conflict that ousiders interpret.
Towards Asmara by Thomas Keneally was eventually disappointing. As a process, the experience was strewn with beauty, vivid images and arresting phrases. The author, for instance, described desert vegetation ready to burst into life at the first "rumour" of moisture. The writing style has a quirky inventiveness that regularly surprises. Where...

Book Review: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Philip Spires — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 16:57:11 EDT

A truly frightening view of how violence and murder can come home.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote was published in 1966, and is based on events that happened almost fifty years ago. The events were real. This is not a work of fiction. The Clutters, an appropriately surnamed Kansas family, have their own complications within their rambling homestead. What family doesn’t? Clutter the father is a farmer. Who...

Book Review: The Inheritance Of Loss by Kiran Desai

Philip Spires — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:37:12 EDT

As a process, the book is almost stunningly good. As a product, it falls short.
The Inheritance Of Loss, by Kiran Desai, is a magnificent and impressive novel that is ultimately disappointing. As a process, the book is almost stunningly good. As a product, it falls short.The book's language, scenarios, and juxtapositions are funny, threatening, vivid, and tender all at the same time. The comic element, always riven through...

Book Review: The End Of The Affair by Graham Greene

Philip Spires — Mon, 7 Jul 2008 11:08:04 EDT

The book examines the space within human relationships. It suggests, perhaps, that we often enter that space only unwillingly, and vacate it with ease.
Anyone who has lived in London could place the Common that forms a geographical centrepiece in The End Of The Affair by Graham Greene. It doesn't really matter if it's the particular place one thinks it is, because it's what happens in the houses at or near its periphery that is central to the book. And the relationships between man and woman,...

Book Review: Ashes To The Vistula by Bill Copeland

Philip Spires — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 11:32:27 EDT

Auschwitz concentration camp is the setting for this World War Two novel about loyalty and betrayal.
“The insanity of war has robbed me of everything I knew and loved.” These are the words of Filip Stitchko, a Pole, a concentration camp kapo, an overseer, a policeman in Auschwitz. And, by the time the reader has reached the end of Filip’s story in Ashes To The Vistula by Bill Copeland, those words emerge with poignancy, irony and...

Book Review: The Way To Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa

Philip Spires — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 07:34:30 EDT

Mario Vargas Llosa juxtaposes the fame of painter Paul Gauguin with the life of his socialist campaigner grandmother, Flora Tristan.
I rarely read novels more than once. There are some I have read several times, but the list might just run to double figures. I have read The Way To Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa twice, but not for the usual reasons. First time, though, I was so disappointed with the book that I thought I had to be mistaken. So I waited a few months and read it...

Book Review: Where We Once Belonged by Sia Figiel

Philip Spires — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:13:41 EDT

A novel about Samoan society, a complex culture often misunderstood by outsiders.
Where We Once Belonged, by Sia Figiel, is a novel set in Samoa, a novel that won the Commonwealth Writers Prize. At one level it is a simple story of one girl's journey through childhood and adolescence. Alofa tells us about her school life, her church, her favourite television programmes, and her family. She tells us of local practices, customs,...

Book Review: The Spanish Inquisition - An Historical Revision by Henry Kamen

Philip Spires — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:41:10 EDT

Details the ideology, processes and consequences of an infamous pursuit of religious purity.
Henry Kamen´s The Spanish Inquisition is an amazing experience. It is a highly detailed, supremely scholarly and ultimately enlightening account of an historical phenomenon whose identity and reputation have become iconic. So much has been written about it, so many words have been spoken that one might think that there is not too much new to...

Book Review: Two Weeks Since My Last Confession by Kate Genovese

Philip Spires — Sun, 25 May 2008 19:54:47 EDT

The O'Briens are a good Catholic family, the father a senator. Drugs, war and abuse take their toll, however.
Two Weeks Since My Last Confession is a novel by Kate Genovese. It is a family saga, featuring the O’Briens from Boston, Massachusetts. On the face of things, the O’Briens are an upstanding pillar of the community. John O’Brien is a politician, a senator no less, and a respected and long-term incumbent to boot. Marie, Mrs....

Book Review: Rufus And The Biggest Diamond In The World by Michael Elsmere

Philip Spires — Sun, 25 May 2008 10:47:48 EDT

In Rufus, two boys seek and find treasure in an imagined journey to worlds where birds talk and words come to life.
In Rufus And The Biggest Diamond In The World, Michael Elsmere creates nothing less than a complete fantasy world of children’s literature. Rufus has been told a story by his father about a diamond of a size beyond anyone’s dreams. It is just waiting to be found, so, having lost his parents, Rufus sets out to do precisely that.It is a...