Savidge Reads in Spain

As this goes live, I will be in the city of Bilbao for a week of escape. It dawned on me a few weeks ago that I had not had a trip away to properly relax since Cyprus back in spring last year and so it seemed the perfect time for me to getaway with a big pile of (Costa) books and just go somewhere I could read, relax, wander and escape. So I picked a city that I have always dreamt of going to… Bilbao.

Believe it of not I actually took this picture.

Why Bibao? Well of course there is the Guggenheim which I have always wanted to see (and I have already walked past as I type this, it was closed so it was just an initial nosey as I walked along the river to get my bearings) then there is the pintxos (like tapas only more intricate and hand crafted, just as scrummy if not more so) then there is all the other culture which it has in abundance. A lot like Liverpool, only on a much grander scale and with possibly better craft and design) Bilboa went from an busy industrial harbour, where the river meets the estuary and meets the sea, to a place forgotten, slightly worn down and then has emerged through culture and art into one of the most exciting and vibrant cities. I type this like I know it (well, I do know Liverpool) yet this is my first trip though already a 30 minute walk has shown me it appears to be true.

So before I head back out to find some more pintxos, because when in Bilbao how can I not, I wondered if a) you had any delightful recommendations for places for me to go and b) if you would like me to do some posts on here of some of the things that I get up to while I am in such a culture brimming city? I have heard of a floating library which might be up many of your streets.

A Decade of Savidge Reads

Dear lovely reader of this here blog,

Yes YOU looking at this screen, I do mean you. This is as personal as I can get through the ether to speak directly to YOU.

Today Savidge Reads turns ten whole years old, which (obviously) means that I have now been banging on about books on the internet for a whole decade, which just seems madness. Who would have thought it, eh? Certainly not 25 year old me when I first pressed published back in 2007. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear me, happy birthday to me!

Last year I had a cake, this year I don’t but if I did it would be this one.

To commemorate this milestone I thought it would be nice to do three things (I wanted to do ten but some of them involve that figure so bear with) to mark the occasion over the next year. Yes, the next year. And one of them involves you as I think it would be lovely to hear more from you lovely bookish lot. After all it is thanks to lovely readers like yourself reading this now, that have made this blog what it is and I am super-duper grateful for that. I don’t know if I say it enough, thank you, you all mean and have meant a lot.

The first, which is all me, new content. Woohoo! Really I should have done my relaunch now, what a silly sausage. Life, it gets in the way sometimes doesn’t it, like that pesky thing – work, ha! Anyway, I will be backdating the blog with content now that a WordPress glitch has been fixed. I will also be bringing some new features and series onto the blog which I have been working on a while. I am still tweaking these but one will be a book club with the wonderful Sarah Schmidt where we choose a dark/gothic/creepy/unsettling book each month (launching the first six in advance soon)  for you to read along with us which I am super excited about.

The second, which will happen over the next few weeks/months, is that I would like you to suggest various lists of tens that you might like to see. I asked on Twitter what I should do to celebrate ten year of the blog on the blog and, apart from the obvious ask of actually write a blog) people came up with the following of which more suggestions are most welcome in the comments down below so get suggesting…

• Top ten best things that have happened because of the blog.
• Top ten tips for blogging.
• A blog on blogging, ten highs and lows.
• Top ten books of all time.
• Top ten writers.
• Top book from each of the ten years.
• Top ten book to film adaptations.
• Top ten authors or books I discovered because of the blog.

Now that last bullet point links into my third idea of celebration which all comes down to you. I would love, love, love, love, love for you all (yes ALL, ha) to email me with a favourite book that YOU have discovered because of this blog and give me a paragraph or two on why you loved it. So we all keep spreading the booky LOVE. Lovely. And as a thanks I will pick someone every so often at random who will win a book or two based on the book you loved and why you loved it. Does that make sense? Basically email me your thoughts on a book you found from Savidge Reads and then loved to savidgereads@gmail.com with ‘A Book of the Decade’ as the title and you could win a book or two at any point through the next year, and with that a new series was born.

I hope that seems like a nice set of ways to celebrate? As always I would love your thoughts on anything else you would like to see and the like in the comments below, let’s get book chatting. And thank you again for a decade of delight. It has been ace.

Here’s to the next ten.

Simon xxxxx xxxxx