Very bad internet where I am at the moment so I still haven’t looked at anything in great detail, but I did notice there are books by 恒川光太郎 among the offers. I believe several forum members have read books of his, and 夜市 specifically was read by the IBC club. I read it recently and found it to be not really horror as I understand it. It had many fantasy elements, and the horror was only in a few slightly macabre moments and the idea of such worlds as were described existing just beyond our perception. I liked it well enough, and language-wise it wasn’t very challenging either.
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After taking a better look, I think I may be interested in this series: 山の霊異記（角川文庫）(文芸・小説)の電子書籍無料試し読みならBOOK☆WALKER
It’s supposed to combine nature (specifically mountain) appreciation with ghost stories. The author is a mountaineer, and all stories are set in the mountains and describe weird incidents that supposedly happened (to travelers?) there. Reviews talk about how they specifically enjoyed the mountain atmosphere and the nature descriptions. I vastly prefer ghost stories set in nature to those set in cities and old buildings, I feel there’s something very Japanese about it. I have yet to read the sample, so I can’t comment on the writing, but the premise at least appeals to me.
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Looks interesting - can they be read in any order, do you know?
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They are all collections of standalone stories, and there are no numbers in the series, so I assume so.
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This is gonna be a strange answer because I think I’ve only recently become an avid reader in the last 2 or 3 years.
English wise I have a mental backlog of the books I should have read growing up that I want to get through.
Japanese wise it just depends on what I’m into at the time. But it’s important to me to try and finish whatever I’m trying to read because my personality is a bizarre mix of completionist and OOoOOO shiny.
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me
To answer the question - my genre is anything fiction with a heavier focus on horror/suspense/whodunit. From there, my selection process is kind of something that just developed on its own as I browse more books overtime:
Is the cover nice/eye-catching? If yes then I pick it up.
Can I read/understand the title? If yes,
Can I read/understand the synopsis at the back? If yes,
Does it sound interesting? If yes then buy.
Sometimes I’ll even try to read the first few lines and sometimes that sells itself. I just bought a short story collection whose first line was: “I wonder how my mother will kill me” and I was just sold.
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me too, what’s the title?
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Zoo 1 by Otsuichi. I’m really liking his writing style; it’s easy to digest for a learner without it being too simple. I first read his stories in the Read Real Japanese collection and his style just stuck with me.
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That was the book カラフル for me. I want to read it eventually. The first few pages were so interesting.
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The bunko paperbacks were only 600~ yen apiece. I threw both in my cart because they look really interesting.
I’m glad you found them interesting! I’m still on the 3rd story of the first book and honestly each story is taking me for a ride (in a good way!). I’d likely follow this up with Zoo 2 down the road.