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ahardreturn.bsky.social
Hard Return
@ahardreturn.bsky.social
240 followers 760 following 440 posts
Personal and book review blog.
A one-woman book club.
💙📚💬
AI free. I do not use AI to read, post, or review books. My content is my own.

www.aHardReturn.com

I’m on NetGalley and StoryGraph, too. 💛
https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/hardreturn
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ahardreturn.bsky.social
Hard Return @ahardreturn.bsky.social · Mar 1
Reading. Writing about it.
ahardreturn.com
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
#BooksSky
#BookLover
#BookWorm
#Readers
Yellow toned image of a stack of books held up on an arm. Words in black text over top of it say, “Personal and book review blog. A one-woman book club.” https://ahardreturn.com/
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Starting this year with last year’s #BookerPrize winner. Half done and undecided so far.

💙📚💬📚🖋️🎄
#BookSky #Flesh #Books #AmReading #Puzzle #HappyNewYear #HolidayReads #Literature #Fiction #Novel
My eReader lays on an unfinished holiday puzzle with lots of green, red, and gold colors. The reader has a floral skin with pink roses and the cover of the book “Flesh” by David Szalay in greyscale on its face. The book has title at top, author name at bottom, and the center of the image is an apple eaten all the way around its core.
January 2, 2026 at 1:46 AM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
It was a good reading year!

💙📚🖋️📚💬
#BookSky #2025Books #NewYear #WrapUp #Books #BookReview #StoryGraph
A collage of data generated in my StoryGraph profile shows some of the books I’ve read this year. It’s gives some stats including: 76 Books Read 26,245 Pages And top rated authors of mine were R.F. Kuang, Isabel Allende, and Wendell Berry.
January 1, 2026 at 9:47 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Started my first P. G. Wodehouse.

#BookSky
My left hand holds up an eReader with the title page for a library copy of “Jill The Reckless” by P.G. Wodehouse on the display. The reader has a floral skin of pink roses and I’m resting it on a white fuzzy pillow. My sage green bed and a beige sleeping puppy are peekable behind the reader.
December 29, 2025 at 9:15 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
After the festivities wrapped, I got to open this up… and I didn’t close it till the final page. I love when I get to do that!

Everett is in my top 3 modern writers.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Rec: 👍

💙📚💬📚🖋️🎄🎁
#PercivalEverett #SoMuchBlue #Novel #Binge #AmReading #Books #Review #BookSky #Christmas #Holiday #LitFic
I hold a paperback copy of “So Much Blue” by Percival Everett up to the camera. The book is a deep color of blue with a stylized drawing of a woman sitting at a counter with her back to us. She has shoulder length blue-black hair and is in a blue strappy cocktail dress. The title is written in stark white letters that could almost be brush strokes. Around the book holiday lights and a Christmas tree glow in the background.
December 26, 2025 at 6:51 AM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Hard to get time to read during these holidays but a little bookish laugh and my best wishes to #BookSky
Merry Happy to all!! 💛

💙📚💬🎄🎁🟦☃️
#HappyHolidays #MerryChristmas #Solstice #Winter #Reading #Books
A cartoon by John Atkinson of Wrong Hands is titled “All of the Author Reindeer.” Below it has a chart of 12 identical reindeer dressed differently to represent an author listed below them. Reindeer “Shakespeare” wears a large ruffle around the throat. “Austen” wears a wedding veil. “Dickens” wears a scarf and cabby hat like Oliver Twist in the movies. “M. Shelley” is green with neck bolts like Frakenstein. “Stoker” has a fang and cape. “Verne” is in a metal diving helmet with his antlers poking out the top. “Hemingway” is actually a cow drawn in the same style. “Alcott” wears a cap like Little Women. “Tolstoy” wears a fur cap and fur collar. “Atwood” wears the white cap from the show imagery, obscuring its face the same way. “Joyce” has a four leaf clover in place of each antler. “Kafka” is a roach. Haha
December 25, 2025 at 8:38 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
😆
retired-librarian.bsky.social Retired-Librarian @retired-librarian.bsky.social · 13d
A well placed semicolon could fix me.
December 20, 2025 at 7:23 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
TBR
December 14, 2025 at 11:31 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
I get the intent, but it leaves me with feeling of foreboding. Thinking of tweens and teens who only find representation, company, or help outside their homes and neighborhoods. Feels like limiting people instead of requiring moderation by companies. Children instead of shareholders. I worry.
Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
Australia on Wednesday became the first country to ban social media for children under 16, blocking access in a move welcomed by many parents and child advocates but criticised by major technology com...
www.reuters.com
December 12, 2025 at 4:36 AM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Pausing this for a moment bc I hate to hold up a Libby ebook if it has a line.

I love the laid back writing style in this. Story moves quickly and the voice feels very true.
💙📚💬🌈
#BookSky #Novel #LitFic #BannedBooks #Books #AmReading #BookReview #LGBTQ
Holding up a paperback copy of “Tramps Like Us” by Joe Westmoreland at my dining table. The cover has a black and white image of a 1970s city street but in blue ink. Imposed over that is an image of a shirtless man with short hair and a mustache. The man is orange with shadows and definition in red. Above him, the title is in big block letters of the same orange with red borders.
December 10, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by Hard Return
bigbeardybooks.bsky.social
It's Monday again and today I'm reading "Utterly Lazy and Inattentive: Martin Parr in Words and Pictures" by Wendy Jones and Martin Parr

What book(s) are you reading this week?

💙📚 #BookSky #AmReading #MondayReads #TBR

alt text in images please
white circle in a blue background and the words "It's Monday! What are you reading?" in the circle
December 8, 2025 at 5:52 AM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
retired-librarian.bsky.social Retired-Librarian @retired-librarian.bsky.social · 26d
I worked with someone who started all her emails with "Greetings" so I told her it could be a trigger for people who were drafted during Viet Nam or who had family members drafted during Viet Nam and she had no idea what I was talking about.
December 7, 2025 at 6:44 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is a top book of 2025 for me. WOW.

💙📚🖋️📚💬💧❄️
#BookSky #TopBooks #BookReview #BookRecs #Books #Bibliophile #Literature #LitFic #AmReading #BookLover #Snow #Water #Video
December 7, 2025 at 4:40 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Binge reading the last 100 pages of this amazeballs book.
#BookSky #BingeReading #AmReading
💙📚🖋️📚⏳
Holding up a hardcover library book in warm bedroom reading light. The book is “There Are Rivers In The Sky” by Elif Shafak and shows an image of a Mesopotamian city under a blue sky. Over the entire cover are gold metallic lines winding up like water in a river.
December 7, 2025 at 5:35 AM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
TBR
mkat90.bsky.social runawaymaryk @mkat90.bsky.social · 27d
Currently reading my fifth John Irving novel.

Years ago I picked up Until I Find You on a whim and I’ve been hooked on his writing ever since.

#booksky
The cover of The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving (with cat and Christmas tree in the background)
December 6, 2025 at 3:52 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
I missed Mychal after leaving the gram. 💛 So glad to see them here and to be reminded of this book from childhood!!
December 5, 2025 at 4:03 AM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Such a great read! I did a write-up for folks who want to know why I think so. Check out my blog post and then check it out at your library! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75/5 Rec: 👍

💙📚💬📚🖋️💛
#BookSky #Writing #Reading #BookReview #Books #Literature #BookBlog #BookClub
December 3, 2025 at 2:36 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
This read got me writing. 😉 Check out my blog post for #TheBookOfGuilt by #CatherineChidgey at the link below!

💙📚💬📚🖋️📚⏳
#BookSky #Blog #BookReview #BookRecs #BookBlog #Dystopian #LitFic #Books #Reading #Novel
The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey
Finally! A dystopian novel for the gal who dislikes dystopian fiction.
ahardreturn.com
December 2, 2025 at 8:08 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
💙📚
#BookSky #Indie #SmallPress #Books
100 Notable Small Press Books of 2025
The idea of 100 Notable Small Press Books was born November 2024, after The New York Times’s annual 100 Notable Books list featured eighty-two books from the Big Five publishing houses (Pengu…
lithub.com
December 2, 2025 at 2:04 AM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
This was a miss for me. I think the way it is written is very clever, but there is no real growth in my view.

Anyone feel the same? Or differently?

⭐️⭐️.5/5 Rec: 👎
💙📚🖋️📚💬📖

#BookSky #Memoir #BookReview #BookRec #Books #MondayReading #Reading #Abuse #Trauma #Literature #Family
I hold up a hardback book in my living room. Lamp, television, and other living room things are seen around it. The book is “A Silent Treatment” by Jeannie Vanasco. Its cover looks like the back side of an aged, browned envelope with the flap slightly lifted.
December 1, 2025 at 10:21 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Do you have book recommendations for middle and elementary school kids?

It’s time for holiday shopping and this Auntie doesn’t know where to start!!

💙📚🖋️📚💬📚🎄🎅
#BookSky #YouthFiction #KidLit #Fiction #Literature #ChildrensBooks #BookRecs #Reviews #Books #Gifts #Shopping #Holiday #TBR #Kids
A pink, vintage ornament hangs in green Christmas tree foliage. White strand lights glow around it in an off focus way.
November 29, 2025 at 3:08 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
TDR
idabeware.blacksky.app Spooky Electric 🦀🌊 👻 @idabeware.blacksky.app · Nov 25
Now reading Mexican Gothic 💙📚
Book cover Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia
November 25, 2025 at 2:25 AM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Holy moly. What a great read.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75/5 Rec: 👍

Dystopian but not overly so. Mystery. Thriller. I can’t say much more bc I hate even teeny spoilers. It’s so, so good.

💙📚⏳📚🖋️📚⚡️📚💬
#BookSky #Books #Reviews #TBR #BookRec #LitFic #Reading #Fiction #Literature #Love #Thriller #Mystery
ahardreturn.bsky.social Hard Return @ahardreturn.bsky.social · Nov 24
Just over halfway. How am I not seeing this book everywhere?! So glad my #library displayed it bc this was a book I picked up for the cover.

💙📚🖋️📚⏳📚
#BookSky #Dystopian #Fiction #LitFic #Literature #Mystery #Literature #AmReading #MondayRead #Books #BookRec #Review #Love #Reading
My left hand holds a hardcover library copy of “The Book of Guilt” by Catherine Chidgey. Morning light on a bedroom wall and household clutter peeks behind the book. The cover itself mostly blue sky with green sumner clouds. At bottom is green grass rolling down to the right at a soft decline. A blonde haired boy lays on the grass with the top of his head toward us, booted feet and knobby knees to the sky and askew. He could be cloud gazing and wiggling as kids do or in a kind of somersault down the incline. Above and across the sky, the title is written in a coordinating blue and looks like it was written with a brush.
November 25, 2025 at 12:18 AM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
TBR all of them. 😂
bigbeardybooks.bsky.social Stephen Baird @bigbeardybooks.bsky.social · Nov 24
It's Monday again and today I'm still reading "Severed Streets" by Paul Cornell

What book(s) are you reading this week?

💙📚 #BookSky #AmReading #MondayReads #TBR

alt text in images please
white circle in a blue background and the words "It's Monday! What are you reading?" in the circle
November 24, 2025 at 3:33 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
TBR
cfpharmd.bsky.social Kim Novak - The Reading Rx @cfpharmd.bsky.social · Nov 24
Finishing up the last few pages of Ordinary Soil by Alex Woodard. Then we’ll see where my mood lands.
Ordinary Soil by Alex Woodard
November 24, 2025 at 3:30 PM
ahardreturn.bsky.social
TBR
simontull.bsky.social Simon Tull @simontull.bsky.social · Nov 24
A nice light start to my weekly reading
A short history of tractors in Ukrainian - marine lewycka
November 24, 2025 at 3:29 PM