Basic hashtable syntax

(defun read-hash-list (stream)
  (read-delimited-list #\} stream))

(defun make-read-hash-table (stream char)
  (declare (ignore char))
  (let ((a-list (read-hash-list stream))
        (ht (make-hash-table)))
    (assert (evenp (length a-list)))
    (loop for i = 0 then (+ i 2) until (= i (length a-list))
          do (setf (gethash (elt a-list i) ht)
                   (elt a-list (1+ i))))
    ht))

The issue is when you actually try using this - there's some extra setup that you have to do to make it work correctly.

{"a" 'b}| C-x C-e => B}

It's really just a minor bug that can be fixed during execution of read-hash-list. I knew about it but didn't really care enough to fix it