Shelfies #13: Borja Bilbao

Each of these three books has a reason to be here. For the first two, these are not my favourite of the authors, but have a special meaning. The third one allows me to tell a different story.

The first book I read in English when I came to the UK was Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Have to say I was not able to end it – not because of the book itself though. I felt brave enough, used to reading chunky scifi books in Spanish, to read the same in a foreign language I was using daily for the first time. Reality showed me that no, I was not ready. Error. 404. 

My English was good enough to keep a professional conversation at work but not that good to read through 600 pages of pure space opera and technicalities around humans and spiders and how we can (or we should) survive considering what we see around us everyday nowadays. Anyway, this is not my favourite book from one of my favourite authors (I’ve now read more than 20 of his), but I remember very well my confidence paying for this in the counter and the challenge it was for me to go through it. A year after failing I came back to it, enjoyed profoundly, and still remember most of the events happening there. Who has not heard about Adrian and “his” spiders?

The second is Klara and the Sun by the one and only Kazuo Ishiguro. The guy who can best profile and depict characters in literature writes a great AI story reaching a whole new audience not used to science fiction but keen on reading Nobel prizes. You know. As the first page of my book states, it was 26^th October 2022, and the Clarke Award was about to be announced at the Science Museum in London. Among the nominations and attendees, Kazuo Ishiguro himself. Kazuo Ishiguro. I am slightly introvert in public and took me some time (and the help of a friend) to go grab a book from the shop, approach Kazuo, and get a signature in what makes this book, this specific physical book, one of the most special ones in my shelf. 

Finally, The Housemaid. I haven’t read this, but I can tell with very narrow chance of getting it wrong, that there is no fantasy or science fiction in this one. Showing this book allows me to tell you a different story. On the 23^rd of April of each year, it is national book day in Spain. Yes, the World Book Day you know is not the WORLD book day, sorry. People use to buy books that day because, apart from the festivity itself, it is the only day in the year when you can get 10% discount in physical books. Yeah, price is fixed for books anywhere in the whole country. Not going to get into this as I would run out of words. 

In Catalonia, on the northeast of the country, the tradition says that you gift someone you like, love, whatever, a book and a rose. A rose. ONE rose. Even though I am not from there, this year I gifted my then partner (now wife, time flies) with this book and a rose. She was looking for a fast paced, page turner book and after deep research I found this book is really hitting it. Buying the rose made me explain the florist why I only wanted one rose and she was nice enough to let me tell her the story I just wrote here. Hey, you, buy a rose along the book next book day. It is nice. Be nice.

Borja Bilbao is a spanish science fiction and fantasy communicator and reviewer. He writes articles and author interviews at Windumanth magazine which was awarded as Best Magazine at the European Science Fiction Society in 2019 . He has moderated panels at Celsius festival, Hispacon, 42 festival in Barcelona and other book events. He runs his own blog and uses his social media channels to talk about books, both in English and Spanish. He lives in London alongside hundreds of books.

Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin. If you are interested in sharing a shelfie of your own, please let us know.