Kimberly Hirsh

Everybody is doing their year-end stuff, so I thought I’d do mine.

I read 46 books this year including comics/graphic novels and poetry. About 12 of those were graphic novels or poetry and another 2 or 3 were short story or novella collections. This puts me right about where my usual average for longer works is, around 30 books. I don’t set quantitative reading goals anymore besides reading one more book than I’ve read so far in a given year.

My reading this year was heavily influenced by the microgenres/aesthetics of cozy fantasy, adventurecore, and woodland goth.

I sought out cozy fantasy and adventurecore in particular because I wanted my reading to comfort me.

I joined the Atlas Obscura book club on Literati, because Austin Kleon stopped running his book club. I only finished two of the 5 books I got, but I look forward to finishing the ones I didn’t. I love the curation but the monthly format doesn’t really work for me and I wasn’t making the kinds of connections to other readers that I’d hoped to.

I started to list my favorite books I’ve read this year but the list got too long. I loved the Hildafolk series and The Bloody Chamber.

I began the year with the intention to get caught up on Leigh Bardugo’s backlist, and I only have one book to go, The Rule of Wolves. I started that this week, so I hope to finish before the year is out and be caught up just in time for the release of the new Alex Stern book.

I think that’s all I have to share about my reading this year. How did your reading year go?

True facts about my time on the early web:

In many chats (like, html + server side scripting with auto-refresh), my handle was Elora Danan and my profile picture was a Labyrinth-era photo of Jennifer Connelly.

I am a very specific sort of nerd.

Wonderful things 🥳:

1. My kid fell asleep before 9:30 for the first time this week. 😴
2. I ❤️ Tom Bombadil, Goldberry, & Andy Serkis singing as both of them. 📚
3. Tomorrow I get to watch Neverafter. 🧙‍♀️
4. My friend Little Willow rescued a kitty & sent me many pictures. 🐱

Some notes on my Spotify Wrapped:

1. Joe Hisaishi is the composer for My Neighbor Totoro, which is what I wake M up with on the rare morning he’s not awake by 7:30.
2. All 5 of my top songs are from the Totoro soundtrack because I play it other times too.
3. The reason my minutes are so high is that I use Spotify for M’s white noise.
4. Where this says “New Wave,” you should read “Goth.”.

No Enya this year, but The Lonely Island stands strong.

Friends! Are you on Mastodon? Are you seeing this on Mastodon? I’m about to stop using indieweb.social to syndicate my posts to Mastodon but you can still follow me! Drop @kimberlyhirsh@kimberlyhirsh.com in your Mastodon search & give me a follow.

My son sings “Step by Step” at school sometimes. I always thought it sounded like a union song and, indeed, the lyrics come from a miner’s union. I continue to strike today in solidarity with the Graduate Student Employees & Student Researchers.

Hey Micro.blog friendos, I activated ActivityPub & can follow Mastodon peeps via M.b but how do I tell people to find me at @kimberlyhirsh@kimberlyhirsh.com? I’m not showing up in the Mastodon search on indieweb.social. TIA!

@help @jean @manton

I’m like a toddler over here with big feelings, might cry from relief because my parents got my brother’s special needs trust and ABLE accounts squared away. 💞

🔖 Read ‘Y’all,’ that most Southern of Southernisms, is going mainstream – and it’s about time by David B. Parker (The Conversation), h/t @benwerd.

As my Latin teacher said when teaching us the 2nd person plural, “y’all” is a legitimate contraction.

Today has not been my favorite day, for reasons I may choose to detail more extensively in the future. For now, I’ll just say that the day began with poor sleep, a migraine, and gut issues and it hasn’t gotten better from there. (Thus far it’s been an okay day for family health.)