[2024] 多読/extensive reading challenge

I really liked this series! Though from your previous posts I’m not sure how much our manga interests overlap? The only full series I’ve read that are over 10 volumes are がっこうぐらし and 放浪息子, both of which I recommend in general. Other than that, I’ve read 11/19 volumes of ヒナまつり, but it’s getting a bit stale at this point. Not sure if/when I’ll read more. It’s just a shame, because I really did like it for a while.

2 Likes

It seems possible that our novel tastes overlap more than our manga tastes, but I don’t think I’m basing either of those feelings on much actual information. :joy: Either way, I definitely want to give やがて君になる a solid chance. If it ends up not being now, it’ll be later~

3 Likes

Finished 鍵のかかった部屋 and started 本好き 3! Already thinking about what to read after that–maybe the next 獣の奏者?

With nanowrimo my reading and studying time has decreased a lot. I’m thinking about putting 雪国 on pause. It seems like there won’t be other new novel book clubs starting for a while? (I feel like saying that without checking is a sure way for one to be starting next week or something, so I am off to check.) Intermediate’s current book runs through the end of January; Advanced about a week into January; I’ve completed the readings for the current 本好き and 獣の奏者… okay, good. Anyway, it might be all I can do to keep up with manga book clubs (and right now I’m not even doing that), and in the past couple weeks when I’ve sat down with my reading-novels-in-Japanese brain the idea of giving it to anything other than 鍵のかかった部屋, or now 本好き, was not compelling.

Also this thread hasn’t been updated in a while–what is everyone reading? And what do you want to read after that?

6 Likes

What’s this about and how did you like it?

I’m going to finish 獣の奏者 book 2 tomorrow or Monday. Then I’m reading Rhythm of War (which is why I’m finishing 獣の奏者 early to begin with), and then after that I’ll start 本好き book 3. That should take me through the end of the year or so.

I do still need to make the thread for 狐笛のかなた, which we’ll read after officially finishing 獣の奏者. The start date isn’t decided yet, but probably early January. If the other book clubs are starting new books in January, I wonder if it would be better to start later… :thinking:

7 Likes

I’m currently finishing up the first volume 好きの下剋上 and after that I want to read the second volume and also catch up on the rezero book club and read the last yagakimi Sayaka light novel and read the next volume of 私の推しは悪役令嬢 and of danmachi and start reading Adachi and Shimamura and The Isolator and SAO Progressive and also actually continue reading some manga series I’ve started reading… the conclusion I can draw from this is that there are too many things I want to read and I will stop my list here :laughing:

Oh, and it’s not in Japanese, but I also literally just finished reading Dawnshard(in English) and will be reading Rhythm of War as soon as I get it.

8 Likes

We’re planning a new intermediate level book club after the 獣の奏者 book club is finished. We’re aiming to start sometime between December 26th and February 13th, to be determined by a poll.

3 Likes

@seanblue

It’s the third in the locked room murder mystery series I’ve been reading, and I very much enjoyed it! I like that the mysteries are like puzzles, that there’s not anything gruesome, that they can be sad and moving etc but are also funny, and also I love the two main characters.

Ohhh, I will have to think about 狐笛のかなた! That author is definitely someone I want to read more of.

@Ditto20

Look at all those things–that’s a lot of Japanese reading happiness just waiting for you to get there! :smiley:

5 Likes

Oooooh that sounds interesting! Do you get enough information to be able to solve them yourself? I often watch Conan and love the general story but the puzzles are often solved through information that is not available to the viewer, and this takes away some of the joy.

1 Like

I’m no good at putting clues together while reading mysteries even in my native language, but I think generally when the mystery comes together, all the key bits are bits that appeared in the story previously, so maybe yes? I find the books fun, and the drama version is also excellent, if you like this sort of thing. :smiley:

2 Likes

OK, added them to my long list of recommendations! Plus I discovered there are some other books by the same name (no surprise given it’s a popular plot device), so even more books to check out :sweat_smile:

To answer your question by the way, I’m currently following the usual book clubs (Hakase, Snow Country, Fruits Basket, Flying Witch, mainly). Also, I finally managed to finish Kiki the other day - I actually started reading it with its original book club that ran almost 3 years ago, but back then it was simply hopeless for me. Now it had turned into a nice evening entertainment :upside_down_face: To celebrate that, I continued to read さくらえび - an autobiographic-sounding book written by さくらももこ, the author of the apparently very popular manga ちびまる子ちゃん. She casually talks about funny events around her family and her company. I don’t get everything because she sometimes talks about famous Japanese people that I don’t know, but I like her refreshing and casual writing style. When I learned that she died about two years ago at age 53 (of breast cancer), I got really sad.

Apart from that, I have some half-started books lurking in the shadows :roll_eyes: Hmmm… I think I should make it a goal to clear them out until the end of the year. I’ll keep y’all posted how it went!

4 Likes

Kinda fell off the face of the Earth the moment I started working alongside uni :anguished:
Now I’m trying to catch up to 魔女の宅急便 before it’s over and then to 獣の奏者… Will probably have to drop 博士の愛した数式 unfortunately unless I have some unexpected free time, which it doesn’t look like I will.

On the non-bookclub front I was finally reading 乙女ゲーム。。。at a nice speed until I dropped that too. Going to need some effort if I’m to finish that one and another book before the year is over to make my goal. We’ll see about that.
Before this mess I was also finally reading a few free manga I’d come across with an ease that finally didn’t feel like I was studying, so I’m hoping to pick that back up as well.

If I somehow manage that, I might be back to make some goals for next year. Still kinda proud I didn’t drop WaniKani as well again…
Homework: don’t join so many bookclubs if you don’t know how busy you are going to be

15 Likes

Yay over halfwayin my book. I think I can make my goal for reading 1 book this year.

9 Likes

I know there were largely mixed feelings about 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 from the book club, but apparently the entire series is on sale for only 109 yen each.

2 Likes

Yeah, and it’s also only useful to people that can read very quickly.

So it’s almost December (I’m sorry, wHAt?) and I fell wayyyyy off the reading consistently horse. This year has been an absolutely insane ride since corona hit, and honestly I feel like the entire past 8 months just disappeared.

I’m in the middle of 獣の奏者 and also 魔女の宅急便 (oops, what’s a book club) and if I finish those, that’ll at least put me at one book short of an average of one book a month this year, with what I would consider a solid variety of books mixed in. I set a stretch goal of 24, which would maybe have been doable if I had cut a ton of social stuff out of the equation months back, but 12 was the actual minimum goal (I haven’t read for leisure since I graduated high school 8 years ago, starting reading at all was and still is a challenge for me at times).

If I can finish the 2 books I’m reading now, and then throw in just one more before the year ends, I should be able to hit 12 pretty easily and I’ll be satisfied. Especially since I ended up reading the entirety of 鬼滅の刃 (which will be 23 volumes once the final one comes out in two weeks), in addition to 四月は君の噓 for what will be a total of 34 volumes.

Next year the goal is to stick to books, not manga, and try to read things that are a bit higher on the difficulty scale so I can get more exposure to higher level grammar and vocab.

11 Likes

They’re having their 3 months for 99yen campaign again right now too.

1 Like

Here’s a random post because scrolling down to this topic when I want to update the list is taking longer and longer :slight_smile:


To keep this more on topic, I bought the five currently available volumes of the manga まちカドまぞく because I liked the first season of the anime, but I’ve read four of them now and I’d say I like volumes 3-4 a lot more than the part that has been adapted in the anime so far(I’m guessing volumes 3 and 4 will be covered in season 2).

I especially liked (volume 3+4 spoilers) how the risky plan that miraculously worked at the end of volume 3 actually ended up having at least some small consequences for Momo, and also just about everything involving Momo in that chapter. Actually, I just like everything involving Momo’s dark form, it’s just a lot cooler than the magical girl one and also matches Shamiko better.

That said, even if it’s good so far I kind of wonder if volume 5 is actually going to be able to keep it up because of all the new characters that have been introduced (I wonder why 4koma manga almost always seem to have tons and tons of characters) and how my favourite scenes mostly just focus on Shamiko and Momo but now there might be less time for them. Guess I’ll find out soon :slight_smile:

Edit: volume 5 was also pretty good. The (attempted, at least) confession at the end of it was nice, even if it was pretty obvious how Momo felt before that already based on… well, a lot of stuff :laughing: Now to wait for the next volume to be released.

One thing I especially like about the manga is that it feels like it has way more of an actual plot than the other 4koma manga I’ve tried reading so far.

8 Likes

It’s getting close to the end of the year and I’ve been thinking about what I want to do for goals this time around. Lately I’ve been on pace to double my initial goal for manga (currently at 92/52, so I have 4.5 weeks to read 12 more volumes), and of course I’ve smashed my goal of one novel (planning to wrap up 本好きの下剋上 vol. 2 around Dec. 29 or so for a total of 7).

I’m thinking I might not set a manga goal at all this time, and just read stuff as it comes out or strikes my fancy. The main thing I’m going back and forth on now is: do I set an easily achievable goal for novels or should I aim high? 1/mo is quite doable at my current level and (assuming my reading speed continues to improve) I feel like reaching an average of 2/mo is not unreasonable, but I’m not sure I want to set a goal of 24 novels right out of the gate :thinking:

9 Likes

Why not split the difference and go with 18 then?

5 Likes

Since I noticed Bookmeter keeps track of how many books you have read during the year, I have been neglecting updating the big table… until today. My read count went from 55 to 62 in one go :rofl: I’ve been ignoring it for longer than I thought.

Also, my most read authors list is kinda sad:


It’s 90%+ light novels…

6 Likes