I think I have one or two more stories by him on the pre-vetted calendar and a couple on the mystery one. I’ve liked 90% of what I’ve read by him. His writing is just… 
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I started but didn’t finish #2 yesterday,but today I managed to squeeze in both the end of that as well as #3!
I enjoyed 死体蝋燭… Especially the twist at the end! The beginning was a bit tedious, but after they got going it was good. 
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December 4th is technically 太宰, but it’s his retelling of a German ballad which in turn is a retelling of a Greek legend, so a bit different than his typical writing. It’s a story commonly taught in Japanese middle schools.
Natively link: 走れメロス | L31
朗読: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJe4D9JkouI
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I read 指輪 today. It was quite good though some of the older words made it harder. I enjoyed the conversation between the two characters. It was pretty funny at parts.
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one of my favourites… though probably a lot of people hate it. generations of school children have been made to learn this ballad by heart. 
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Read 指輪。Man, I can tell that this would be a super interesting one to read if I were more well-versed in 江戸川-era speech. 
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I got about halfway through 走れメロス, but it was just meh; not interesting enough to make me want to make the effort to read the rest of it when I have other things I could be doing this evening. Maybe I’ll come back to it at some point.
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It’s quite literally middle school textbook reading so if you’re not enjoying it I don’t think it will improve I admit I only pushed through for the cultural touchstone aspect
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I’m joining a bit late, and read 野ばら yesterday, really liked it! Then 走れメロス kicked my butt. I thought I remembered it from elementary school, but at that level we must have read an even simpler version (I do remember watching the anime, maybe we didn’t read it at all?). Agree with cat and pm215, not the most interesting story.
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December 5th’s Mystery pick links:
Natively: 萱草に寄す | L30??
朗読 (there’s a lot of old kana spellings and kanji in here so I recommend it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHzapHUZulk
I can’t say I liked this one much. It was basically poetry and the amount of effort I had to exert due to the kana/kanji differences made it not worth it to me.
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I did a bit of lookup on the author of セメント樽の中の手紙 | L33, today’s pre-vetted Aozora story, and unsurprisingly he, according to Wikipedia, was a pro-workers and -working environment writer. Today’s SS by him is listed as one of his notable works. I could easily see this being read in schools with a whole lot of nonplussed students. “I don’t get it”, haha.
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Read 萱草に寄す today and I think it was the first proper poetry I have ever read in Japanese. The poems felt melancholy overall and there were some beautiful lines and interesting nuggets in there, but it just reminded me that I don’t know very much about poetry (haha). 
Glad I read it, though.
Some of the bits I liked (not spoiler tagging them because can you spoil poetry?):
――人の心を知ることは……人の心とは……
私は そのひとが蛾を追ふ手つきを あれは蛾を
把へようとするのだらうか 何かいぶかしかつた
私らはたたずむであらう 霧のなかに
霧は山の沖にながれ 月のおもを
投箭のやうにかすめ 私らをつつむであらう
灰の帷のやうに
夢は 真冬の追憶のうちに凍るであらう
そして それは戸をあけて 寂寥のなかに
星くづにてらされた道を過ぎ去るであらう
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I suspect you’d like this a lot as well: ア、秋 | L36
Very poetic, loved the mood. Also: 太宰
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Today’s mystery pick continues the tuberculosis theme from the 2nd Dec – the poet 立原 道造 died in 1939, aged just 24 
(The author of the Dec 3 story also died early at age 39, but in that case it was pneumonia. And 太宰, author of the Dec 4 story, only made it to 38 (suicide).)
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December 6th:
Natively Link: お月さまいくつ | L35??
朗読: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoQ7hHwOI2g
This is actually an essay which is mostly composed of the children’s song it takes as it’s title. I put in a request to recategorize it to Nonfiction.
The author died fairly young as well, just 57, but in his case it was diabetes and kidney issues according to wikipedia.
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Today I read 雪女 from the pre vetted calendar. It was fine, I mostly understood it, and I’m getting more and more used to the older kanji etc. I don’t have much to say about the story because I’ve read an easier version of it before and there were no plot differences.
I read a bit of the cement one yesterday but couldn’t complete it due to a 10 hour shift and then abdominal pain all evening and night. It did seem interesting though so I’ll read it when I get a free day although the first paragraph seemed to be all about nose picking
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@cat only pre-vets the good ones. 
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Which to be fair, my taste isn’t everyone’s, but I can assure @clam0618 that’s not what the cement story is about 
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Haha. Don’t worry, I figured that it wasn’t the whole plot. Hopefully I’ll have time to revisit it on the weekend
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Today I went with 雪女 from the pre-vetted calendar. It felt perfect for advent reading since it involved winter and snow. 
It felt a bit like a spooky sort of fairy tale, was a fun read!
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