Congrats! That’s still incredibly impressive to me (especially if comparing to the fact that in 8 years of learning I’ve only read just north of 40 books, a pretty abysmal pace).
Are there any books that particularly stick out that you’d recommend either from an entertainment or language learning perspective? (granted, I’m sure that your memories of some of the older ones might be rather vague at this point)
NAHHHH, that’s roughly 15 books a YEAR with a consistency of 20 YEARS! That’s wild!!
Hats off to you and congrats 
I agree, if you have any favorite/stick-out books or authors we would love to hear it!
I am very impressed 
by:
A random selection:
I remember that one quite well, because I picked it up on a trip to Japan. Ghibli had just released 風立ちぬ, so I got to see it in a Japanese cinema, and the publisher of 零戦 had either reprinted it or just done a bit of a marketing drive to tie in with the movie, so it was displayed in a prominent location in a bookshop I wandered into. It’s pretty interesting, though I think more in the “interesting if you’re interested in the topic” way, rather than being a “you’ll like reading this even if you have no interest in the topic” book.
Looking at my stats page I was at something like 40 or 50 books at 8 years in to learning Japanese, so you’re not really behind the pace. It wasn’t til something like 2016 that I started averaging 20+ books a year.
Absolutely loved the anime. Read most of the first book awhile back actually but ended up reading something else and never got back to it. I’ll need to get back to it when I’m done reading my “gay people in denial engage in homosexual acts while making French toast” series. Maybe that will be a good book to read during my downtime during summer break since it’s one of the few that I’m interested in that isn’t social suicide if my coworkers see it.
Most certainly! Congratulations on your achievement. It is very impressive and inspiring
I hope to eventually reach that point as well, though gacha games and many other interests are severely holding me back.
Oh wow, congrats! 
I took the opportunity to check my bookmeter and noticed that I have read 125 books which sounds like a surprisingly nice number, but unfortunately it also includes manga. My Bookmeter bookshelves tell me that I’ve read 82 non-manga books so far, which I’m still quite happy with (given that I started learning Japanese pretty much exactly 7 years ago).
On to the next x-hundred! 
Oh? That sounds relevant to my interests. What’s the name of the series?
週に一度クラスメイトを買う話
I’m not sure if its as relevant to your interests as it seems off of that little description, though. It’s like, really weird. There’s like some weird power dynamic stuff and like…yeah. Very weird and uncomfortable book. I finished book 2 yesterday and it got a bit better… Maybe? It’s slowly getting less weird. Probably will go ahead and read 3 today and will provide update.
I just checked the tags and I got stuff like 男性向け, yuri, and ecchi. So most likely not relevant to my interests, indeed.
Ended up being summoned by friend to go to lunch/music festival/dinner so my day got 10x busier than expected. Finished with just under 1 hour left in the day to spare.
Honestly the story is actually going pretty well, so I’m glad I stuck with it. It’s definitely not a normal yuri book and like many books things would go so much smoother if they would just COMMUNICATE and TELL EACHOTHER HOW THEY FEEL. But I don’t feel as annoyed with them in this book for some reason. Maybe the fact that its ＦＯＲＢＩＤＤＥＮ ＬＯＶＥ and one of them has hella trauma that makes me more patient with them. Honestly, I’m not sure what it is about yuri in general but I’m like incredibly patient with this genre as a whole I think. Like there really haven’t been any I’ve read that I disliked. Maybe I’m just a monkey.
Anyways I will be continuing and reading volume 4. Not sure when though. These books are really doing nothing to help my japanese level (apart from maybe reading speed) so I gotta keep myself in check lol. Maybe just keep reading to the weekends. Really want to get back on my listening and output grind again now that my non-japanese time commitments are more lax. Had a nomikai the other day and really was a wakeup call that I’m still so far from being where I wanna be.
I appreciate the recommendations, especially as they seem mostly in line with my tastes. 新世界より is something that’s been on my radar for a while as something I’m vaguely interested in and want to read some day. But now I’ll bump it up to something I’ll try to tackle in the near future.
I’m also interested in historical fiction so I’ll give 用心棒日月抄 a go. I am curious however, how familiar are you with Japanese history and how do you feel like a lack of knowledge would be a significant impediment to understanding or enjoyment? I read 竜馬がゆく1 a couple of years ago, and while I enjoyed it, I really struggled with the historical terminology and came away with a much more fuzzy understanding of events than when I read other books. I’ve tried to read other 時代小説 but given up due to struggling with comprehension. Do you think it’s just something where you read enough of the genre and start to understand more? Or do you think reading non-fiction about Japanese history is necessary or at least highly beneficial? Or even some other approach that you’d recommend?
I feel as though it’s somewhat different from other genres in that “real-life” knowledge potentially affects one’s understanding more, and some things are harder to pick up from context and require reading up on the fully understand (as opposed to SF or fantasy, for example, which may have niche concepts/ jargon, but which are usually explained because they’re entirely made up).
I’m moderately familiar with Japanese history (in that I’ve read some aimed at a non academic audience books on the subject), at least enough to have a rough conceptual timeline of what happens when[*], plus a bit more depth on the parts I’m interested in like the early Meiji stuff. I don’t think the typical Edo period 時代小説 needs much historical background though – since there weren’t any huge historical upheavals in that 400 years it functions more as a background canvas for the stories and characters. (Contrast Warring States era stories, which do somewhat more expect you to be familiar with the key personalities of the period because the story is more likely to weave in and out of the real historical events, and have real figures make cameo appearances or even be major players in the book.) If you know that the Edo period had samurai in feudal setups and townspeople in Edo and rich merchants and maybe some ninja, that’s good enough to start with
There is definitely a vocabulary hill to climb though – there’s a whole set of historical terminology that’s common across books (random example, 行灯 an indoors paper enclosed standing lantern – that might turn up in present day fiction but it’s a lot more common in 時代小説). The good news is that if you keep reading in the genre you build up the vocabulary that’s common in it. There also is typically a variety of conventional dialects for historical characters; again since everyone uses the same “samurai speak” conventions it carries across books and authors. If you want an easier route in to this you can try 鼠、江戸を疾る | L30 . This is Akagawa Jirou, so you get his straightforward writing style and plotting and you only have to deal with the genre vocabulary rather than vocab plus a more difficult read.
[*] I got this partly from English language overview history books, but also by working through the NHK 高校講座 日本史 series, which is a strictly chronological run through Japanese history from the Joumon period to the Tokyo Olympics. I found it worthwhile advanced listening practice, plus you get to see what Japanese school kids get taught about their history…
Thanks for the recommendations! It’s good to know that you feel as though media set during (I suppose the middle of) the Edo period requires loss background - I have always felt lost when approaching things set during Sengoku or Bakumatsu/ early Meiji stuff.
I will definitely check out the NHK 日本史 series to get a bit of a birds-eye view of Japanese history (I am already familiar with some, but just bits and pieces really).
As planned I used 100% of my self restraint powers and held off on reading 週に一度クラスメイトを買う話 4 during the week. Thanks to that I have ascended to a new level of mastery over my mind and can now move small objects within 3m of myself.
Anyways, just finished it so while it’s still fresh in my mind:
Pretty good. I actually realized how much I really like the whole thing where they have perspective flip back and forth between the two main characters (or just in general). I read a lot of books where its very character driven, and thus character interactions/relationships are the whole story basically, but I really dislike one aspect of them. (WARNING: CONTROVERSIAL DOODOO OPINION INCOMING)With books its really a norm that you can’t know for sure what a character is thinking or what their 行動原理 is and you kinda have to infer it. I really dislike that for some reason. At least with shitty light novels its usually so pronounced that you can tell exactly what characters are thinking, but there’s a limit. The double perspective handled that super well in this book imo.
Girl A has mad trauma from her mother abandoning her and her dad never being there for her that has serious implications in her ability to form a trusting relationship with girl B. She would never say anything regarding her fears of abandonment, but thanks to the double perspective we get to see her internal monologue and the things that prevent her from being more vulnerable. Then we get to switch back to girl B and see kinda how she goes about her interaction with girl A while knowing what sort of things girl A needs to be reassured on to actually open up. It kinda has the same energy as watching a twitch streamer play a game and not know what to do when you’ve already beat the game, but it wasn’t frustrating in this particular book. Maybe the lack of serious conflict contributed to that.
Anyways, I thought it was a neat book. There is definitely room for a continuation so I’m hoping that happens. But for now ４巻 was actually the most ideal stopping point. If there are any yuri enjoyers (@Ditto20 ) this one has my recommendation so long as you are ok with copious biting and licking.
I’ve seen it happen in a couple of novels I read as well and I enjoyed it, too! It’s nice when the gaps in narrative are naturally filled by the other person’s perspective.
In one of the romance light novels I finished a while back the guy was a complete 白紙 and it was the girl who was doing the thinking 
. In the 継母の連れ子が元カノだった 昔の恋が終わってくれない anime it’s kind of similar (not sure about the novel series it’s based on).
But sometimes you get so much inner monologue from the main protag it’s too much.
Do you know if the next 巻 is planned? Sometimes the author states it outright in the 後書き, but sometimes they do and it never happens. That really annoyed me in 俺がラブコメ彼女を絶対に奪い取るまで。The story just falls off with an open ending.
Yeah I mean typically the most “internal mental states” are relevant in shitty light novels is usually for characters on the tsundere spectrum. 継母の連れ子が元カノだった was the rare 元鞘系 where MC really wasn’t at all interested in reigniting the relationship (despite still having feelings) at the start tbf, so lack of thinking is at least in line with his lack of interest in a relationship with the heroine. It would be less respectable honestly if he was still thinking about her in that way. I didn’t particularly care for the series (though I didn’t dislike it), but I think I remember liking the MCs self awareness of “yes you are important to me and I have feelings for you, but we failed at making a relationship work and it is what it is so lets move on”. Obviously that doesn’t last forever though lol.
Tbh I felt that at times. Monogatari has really shown me though that there is no real set amount for “too much monologue”, but you really need to pick your battles. Long ass monologue about something important coming from an interesting MC written well = great. Long ass monologue about some dumb irrelevant shit from ヘタレ MC running in mental circles = hell. Yes, I’m looking at you 義妹生活 (not ヘタレ、but still…).
The author said they’ll see us in the 5th volume atogaki so I’m assuming so. The first 4 volumes of the light novel seems to only have covered about 1/3 of the web novel, so at the very least I can read the web novel if I get tired of waiting. Not sure if that’s done though. If not, it hasn’t been updated in a year or so which tells me the author would be prioritizing the LN.
If you mean 週クラ, as far as I can tell it was updated two days ago on kakuyomu