As the Covid-19 pandemic set in around her, Kiraz, a Turkey-born, Seattle-based software engineer, found herself escaping into books. She’d always been an avid reader, but like most of us book nerds, she phased in and out of periods of heavy and light reading, finding solace in the right book when the right mood hit. In 2020, when discovering the right books formed a new urgency, she turned to a uniquely contemporary source: Bookstagram.

“In 2020, after the pandemic really settled, I started reading more and more. So discovering new books became more important. Also, I’m a mood reader. In the book world that means that you can’t just read any book at any random time. The book you pick has to fit your mood,” Kiraz describes. “Figuring out if this book you’re thinking of reading has the right vibe can be difficult unless you want to try reading many reviews. So I figured why don’t I just create a meter of sorts with emojis to describe just how fantastical, or mysterious, or steamy, a book is and share it publicly. I was following a bookstagrammer for years so I knew it was a thing.”

Initially, Kiraz expected her bookstagram account to continue as a simple emoji rating system, but it quickly took off, blossoming into a whole new avenue for connection and self-expression. “When I was starting off I was surprised at how much of a community there was around it. It’s like its own world within Instagram, with its own trends, challenges and language,” she recalls. Soon, publishers were sending her preview copies of books. Before long, she had her own following and a steady supply of reading material to keep her busy...

Read on in I, Enheduanna Issue 3: In Our Hands, available here.