Hard Return
@ahardreturn.bsky.social
200 followers 580 following 320 posts
Personal and book review blog. (On hiatus during gardening season.🌱🪴) A one-woman book club. 💙📚💬 www.aHardReturn.com I’m on NetGalley and StoryGraph, too. 💛 https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/hardreturn
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ahardreturn.bsky.social
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
It took till the middle of October but my morning glories have finally started flowering! 💙🌱
#GardenSky #Flowers #Gardening #Grow #Plants #Garden #PlantSky #Love #Nature
My right hand turns a blue flower to face the camera, wrist covered by a denim sleeve. The flower is a Morning Glory. From this angle, it is a perfect, flat circle of blue with a deep, fluted center that is white. The white come up out of the center in a perfect five point star. Early morning rain/dew drops stand on the fused, blue flower petals. A wall of green plant foliage fills the background.
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Do you mean that you are alternating between listening to it and reading the physical copy? I do that when I knit.
ahardreturn.bsky.social
LOL I feel that. Def would prefer to be buried under certain genres over others. I hope someone chimes in with info!
ahardreturn.bsky.social
I get legitimately psyched for strangers when I see them setting and reaching book goals! 💛 (Finished on a great one, too.)
skullcakin.bsky.social
Just finished MISERY 😮‍💨 and with that… I met my reading goal for the year!! 30 books!! #booksky 🤩
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Well done!! (Also, isn’t StoryGraph just the best?!)
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Got rid of everything when I found BlueSky and haven’t looked back. 💛
ahardreturn.bsky.social
What is this reselling of books? Does not compute. Aren’t we supposed to collect until we’re buried under them? 😆
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Had to pause the Chuck Tingle at half… hopefully not a DNF though because it was really good. It’s just a lot. Maybe one to read when feeling pretty happy, and even then maybe with mood stabilizers at the ready and a sun lamp. 😂
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Bahaha I knew I didn’t know! 🤷🏻‍♀️
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Wait for it… 💛
mrbill420.bsky.social
Oct 3, a view from above. Excellent fall weather. 😎🤙🏼🍁🌾🌿🌲🌳 #idahoexcape #idahogems #schweitzermountainresort #sandpoint #sellevalley #djiair3 #mountains #valley #forest
ahardreturn.bsky.social
When you see and image and think, “Robert Frost.” I don’t even know if these are birch trees… doesn’t matter.
#BookSky 💙 📚 💬 #Poetry
wynterrayven.bsky.social
Happy #ForestFri 💛🌲
#Nature
#Photography
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Sunday afternoon in my reading/knitting/chilling tent. Alternated listening and reading when my hands were busy. I enjoyed it a lot. Especially all the baseball content!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Rec:👍
💙📚⚡️📚💬📚🖋️⚾️
#BookSky #AmReading #Sunday #LitFic #Books #BookRecs #StephenKing #Baseball #BookLover #InnerChild
My left hand holds a small eReader up. Above and behind the reader are the bright canvas panels of a bell shaped tent riding up to a peaked ceiling. The clear daylight glows through them. 
The reader has a pink skin on it with red strawberries and white daisies as a print. The book cover on the screen is in grey tones and is Stephen King’s “The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon.” It features a young girl wearing a backwards ball cap with an arm raised and bent, hand adjusting the cap on her head. She is turned three-quarter profile away from camera.
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Thank you for this. It is helpful!
ahardreturn.bsky.social
October baseball is over for #Cubs fans. Sigh. It sure was beautiful though. #GoCubsGo

⚾️❤️🍂

#Baseball #MLB #Wrigley
A cartoon by Nathan W. Pyle depicts three cute, blue aliens wearing pink ball caps. They have the following convo while leaving a ballpark. 

“Why do we observe the orb-catchers if it makes us so sad?”
“We didn’t know it would.” 
“We just knew it was likely to.”
“Statistically, most observers experience general sadness at the end…”
“… but this is about joining a group of beings to be specifically sad with.” 
“Unique pain.” 
“In particular hats.”
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Putting this one on pause. It’s just meh for me but that might be more to do with translation. Maybe I’ll return to it. 🤷🏻‍♀️
💙 📚 💬
#BookSky #ReaderSky #AmReading #Books #Reviews #BookRecs #Library #Love #BookCover
A hardback copy of “Dinner at the Midnight Library” by Hika Harada lays on a navy patio cushion in the sunshine. The cover of the book shows a cartoon type drawing of a view looking into a corner of a second floor window. The building has a green roof and big windows. Inside is a screen of a woman perusing large bookshelves, she is turned profile to us. Behind her is a man sitting at a table covered in food and books. An orange cat walks the roof above them in the night sky.
ahardreturn.bsky.social
“If I leave my tote in the car, I’ll check out fewer books.” 😆

What are some book related lies you tell yourself? 😄

💙 📚 💬 📚 📖
#BookSky #ReaderSky #Library #Books #Love #Lies #Reading #Saturday #Haul #BookHaul #Review
A stack of five hard cover books sit on a black dashboard. I’ve taken the picture looking at the bottom of the books so no titles or spines are showing. Green prairie grasses plantings and trees are seen blurred through the windshield behind the book tower that would have been much easier to carry if I’d just taken my tote in with me.
ahardreturn.bsky.social
To Read
corsac22.bsky.social
#20TBRbookchallenge
💙📚

Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order.

No explanations, no expectations, just covers.

#Booksky #bookchallenge
#readingchallenge #readersky

11/20
ahardreturn.bsky.social
To Read
harkitshannah.bsky.social
Sup #Booksky, my friend Seamus wrote an incredibly beautiful and brutal Greek mythology novella that I strongly recommend, Daedalus is Dead, pictured here with an Ube latte
Blue latte in a black cup next to a copy of Daedalus is Dead by Seamus Sullivan, a head collapsing and turning into a labyrinth with the Minotaurs shadow at the entrance
ahardreturn.bsky.social
I forgot to say I finished this the same night. Totally binge-worthy and it wrecked me in a good way. 😉
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25/5
Rec: 👍
ahardreturn.bsky.social
Oh man. Another winner. I’m at 68% and this book has me hooked!
💙 📚 💬 📚❓
#BookSky #Mystery #Thriller #LitFic #AmReading #CaseOfTheMondays #Books #BookRecs #Reviews #PageTurner #Love
Image of the cover for “Wild Dark Shore” by Charlotte McConaghy. The cover art is beautiful. It looks like an oil painting of roiling waves close to shore, capped with white and frothy. Dark cloudy sky above. The light of the whole thing is golden and glowy, like sunset light through the waves and the title and author are written in a peachy orange that mimics that sort of sunset/sunrise light. It makes me think of that old phrase, “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.” Appropriate to this book which deals a lot with the sea.
ahardreturn.bsky.social
This pretty lil’ copy of Kafka was a fun read in the windy sunshine. Equally pretty lil’ puppy added to the pleasure. This book is humorous and absurd. I loved it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5
Rec: 👍

💙 📚 💬 📚 🖊️ 🐶 🐕
#BookSky #TGIF #Puppies #Kafka #Classics #Literature #Reading #Books #Review #BookRecs #Love #FriYay
A small cloth bound book and a gold doodle puppy lay next to each other in sunshine. The doodle’s back, shoulders and back of head take up 3/4 of the frame filling the bottom and up the right hand side. Just a shape made of tan, shaggy curls. 
The book is navy blue with metallic silver print. The title, “Metamorphosis” appears at the top, bracketed in the top corners by scrollwork. The author name, “Franz Kafka” is at the bottom and also framed by scrollwork. Running the center of the cover is an image of a man with slightly bent knees and his face in his hands, slightly cowering. Stretching out and up a wall behind him, and seemingly towering over him, is his own shadow. Instead of being the shadow of his form is its of a giant cockroach. All of the print and image are in that metallic silver. 
The book and pup lay on a navy blue patio cushion which nearly matches the book and fills the frame. 
An outtake from my attempts to photograph a small cloth-bound book and a gold doodle puppy laying next to each other in sunshine. The doodle has turned her face into the sun from the right of the book and laid her chin on the book. Obscuring the book and shifting the camera focus to her tiny nose, making the book blurry. She is a black puppy nose and tan, shaggy curls. 
The book is navy blue with metallic silver print. The title, “Metamorphosis” appears at the top, bracketed in the top corners by scrollwork. The author name, “Franz Kafka” is at the bottom and also framed by scrollwork. Running the center of the cover is an image of a man with slightly bent knees and his face in his hands, slightly cowering. Stretching out and up a wall behind him, and seemingly towering over him, is his own shadow. Instead of being the shadow of his form is its of a giant cockroach. All of the print and image are in that metallic silver. 
The book and pup lay on a navy blue patio cushion which nearly matches the book and fills the frame.