📚 Remember how I said my hammock was my favorite reading spot? Here’s a flashback to me reading SIX OF CROWS in my hammock a few weeks ago. The purple thing is @the_book_seat, which has changed my reading life. I have chronic pain and sometimes my wrists hurt too much to hold up a heavy book like this one. The Book Seat does it for me. (This isn’t a paid endorsement or ad. My husband got me the Book Seat for my birthday last year. I just really love it.)

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[A copy of SIX OF CROWS is open to Chapter 30, a Jesper chapter. Green trees are in the background. The edge of a purple cushion is in the foreground.]

Want to read: Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope 📚

Want to read: Anya of Ark by Kristian Joseph 📚

Want to read: Blade of Secrets by Tricia Levenseller 📚

📚 I first read SHADOW AND BONE 5 years ago, on a hammock at the beach, when I was 7 months pregnant. I was too impatient to do a re-read before the show, but I hadn’t read the other Grishaverse books so I refreshed my memory with the Wikipedia plot summary and powered through SIEGE AND STORM, RUIN AND RISING, and SIX OF CROWS just in time for the show. I’m reading CROOKED KINGDOM in a more leisurely fashion.

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Alina’s connection with Morozova’s stag really resonates with me because my last name is Yiddish for stag. What’s a bookish connection to your name?

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[A silver stag silhouette pendant sitting on top of a paperback copy of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone which rests on top of a crocheted wrap in green, blue, and purple.]

I started a bookstagram account. You can find it at kimberlyhirsh.reads if you want to follow along. Right now this almost 20 year old picture of me kissing books is the only post over there.

Here are seven bookish facts about me:

💀 My favorite book since 7th grade has been Piers Anthony’s ON A PALE HORSE. I love that it’s about what it’s like to BE Death.

📓 The most recent F2F bookish event I attended was when @austinkleon visited Flyleaf Books on tour for KEEP GOING. That was > 2 years ago.

🚪I love stories with hidden doors that lead to secret rooms. I think the most recent of these I’ve read is @erinmorgenstern’s THE STARLESS SEA.

📕 When I was in middle school, I volunteered as a summer program assistant at my local library.

🌳 My current favorite reading spot is a hammock on my back deck.

🎒 I used to be a middle school librarian.

💒 I’ve only been to the Library of Congress once that I can remember. It was a spiritual experience.

📚 Your turn! Let me know a bookish fact about you!

Finished reading: Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May 📚

Want to read: THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOME ECONOMICS How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live by Danielle Dreilinger 📚

Added “serious Belle vibes 📚” to my bio.

🔖📚 Austin Kleon writes today about [wintering and dormancy] (https://austinkleon.com/2021/05/04/wintering-and-dormancy/), quoting Katherine May’s book Wintering. I’m reading the book right now. What I didn’t know before reading but appreciate is that May is writing about leaving academia.