Personally, I’m reading the Japanese versions of the Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope right now.
I tend to read between 100 and 130 books a year, being at book 41 right now [according to my goodreads challenge] I just finished a reread of the Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab - a.k.a the most lovely person on the planet, and have started American Gods by Neil Gaimon.
This series is so good. I feel like the first one has the best story but the poorest structure, the second book has two stories that don’t really mesh well but again good structure and the third and final book [so far], has the best structure and writing but the weakest story. I really enjoyed all of them up until about 81% of book 3, when it takes a turn and I completely lost interest. Still would recommend it to any- and everybody.
I couldn’t find either of these books with a Google search or in my regional library catalogue. Do they have alternate names or would you be able to provide me with links to these books?
The first author’s full name is gilbert abraham frois and the book I am referring to is Economie Politique, but I read it in Romanian. The second one I do not know if you will find it. It’s a romanian author and I believe it has not been translated.
I’m reading 孫子の兵法 (The Art of War) aimed at first graders supposedly but some of the Kanji is higher than that. The book is good for all levels. Takashi Saito wrote out the principles of Sun Tzu’s book (Son Shi in Japan) in a way for kids to understand. That part is written in big characters. Then there’s a half page, deeper description of that simpler point that is a bit tougher reading wise. Then, in smaller print under the big characters is the original Japanese text of Sun Tzu’s point that even some natives have a some difficulty with because it’s using older Japanese. Good book all around.
I’m about a third way though 星の王子様, which will be the first “proper” book that I finish in Japanese. I bought it last summer, but my Japanese wasn’t as good then as it is now so progress was slow, slow enough for me to temporarily give up on it. I’ dived back in recently, and the going is a lot easier now. Of course there are many words I don’t know, but unless I’m being picky and jotting down every unknown word, a page is readable within a minute or two. I’ve set a goal to finish it within the next two weeks, because I want to read アリスと不思議の国 which I bough recently.
I just started this really fun read called “World Histories and Mysteries from Abracadabra to Zeus”
It’s a collection of a few English words followed by their supposed origins from other languages. I like the way the author presents every word as its own story rather than structuring it like a some kind of dull dictionary of etymology (even though I love etymology dictionaries).
Hmmm, Manga I guess tonight I get to start Azumanga Daioh,
then after that its on to Goldenboy!
If anyone is looking for a good beginner book for Japanese I picked up a book i found on some list called
心の森「こころのもり」 It was a good read, definitely took a direction I didn’t expect though. Difficult enough to challenge, but not enough to frustrate I feel.
I’ve legitimately re-read that whole series at least 6 or 7 times.
I follow the Author [V.E / Victoria Schwab on twitter and we’ve chatted a few times per DM as well, she is really the most lovable human being imaginable. I would highly recommend reading any of her work, be it the Shades of Magic series, or Vicious [vengeful coming out soon and I can’t], or This Savage Song [Our Dark Duet is coming out 2 months I think and I need it now.]
I own the Shades of Magic series as ebook and hardcover, I think I’ll buy the paperbacks sometime to complete the set, and there is a special hardcover edition coming out on Halloween this year with bonus stories and I need that in my life as well.
I think you can tell I like this series a lot haha. I like having multiple editions though, it looks nice on my shelf.
Also, this is V.E. Schwab’s bookshelf, I mean, a person with a bookshelf like that can’t be a bad person.
Currently reading a book called ‘Tokyo: A Biography’. It’s okay. It’s got a lot of interesting little details but the way it’s written is a bit annoying. It reads too much like a university dissertation or something and I hate the way it bounds between different eras and people without trying to tie them together in any way. It’s also frustration that it almost never tells you where the old quarters it mentions are in relation to the current city beyond vague directions like ‘east of the river’.
If anyone knows a really good history of Tokyo, I’d love to know.
Just started my first Japanese light novel (No Game No Life Vol. 4) to use as a measuring stick and hopefully pick some vocab up (I really don’t wanna do flash cards for 10k+ vocab >.>). It’s slow going since I’m translating each word, but I’ve been able to get a good approximation on what each sentence is saying due to my grammar studies. Not to mention the words repeat a decent amount, so I’m able to just refer back a few sentences to recall what it meant if I forgot. I definitely won’t be able to read it aloud for a bit though, too many kanji to learn the readings for, but that’s what WK is for, eh?
)
