In case you are interested: (fun fact: I seem to have opened all three of these tabs a long time ago - but why? , and yesterday I rediscovered them in my browser so I can as well share them here)
I really like how they use a different picture in the English one, and how they talk about different parts of his life while not mentioning others (one page mentions post office director, another one mentions farm, etc.).
Yep, I guess I’m the same
not that this doesn’t come with issues of its own… but that’s a different story
Anyways, if you decide to read it, please let me know; maybe I can follow you for the first 10 pages or so
No gradings - 1R1分34秒 | L32 - this was great and I really enjoyed it! I wrote a review about it.
Award-winner - 同志少女よ、敵を撃て | L38 - Went with this book for the award-winner square since it won the 本屋大賞. I typically don’t enjoy a lot of aspects of this book on paper, such as the fact it was WWII historical fiction, a war story, and “pop” fiction on top of that, so I was skeptical when I started this. It took me a while to get into it, but it really won me over by the end. I can’t find any faults with this book at all and was happy with how it ended. As a Svetlana Alexievich fan, I also loved the nods to her book “The Unwomanly Face of War”!
I actually listened to ~30 min of the audiobook on my commute and it’s really understandable so far. I guess it helps that I remember that part, but I didn’t see any difficulty in terms of grammar or vocabulary. It honestly feels like a level ~30 right now.
(Maybe I’m just missing things by not checking the text and my brain is just filling in the blanks, but I don’t think so)
Thanks for the reassurance! I checked the book‘s review and that also said that it starts off at a fairly easy level. I guess the difficulty will probably change once the science stuff kicks in…
That’s also what I remember from my first attempt… but at the same time, I didn’t know much so everything felt difficult. (Still, I did eventually reach a point where I tapped out; I wonder how it will feel now)
So, the manga I just read (ドッグスレッド 2 | L28??) might fall in this category. A large part of it is shown as reporting on the inter-high ice hockey competition of 2011, the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake on some of the schools involved, and the training regimen of the school the main characters attend. When the dates were given (and footnotes indicated that some of the stuff are based on the testimony of relevant people), my mind was blown. HOWEVER, school names have been slightly changed (close enough to recognize which one is which one when looking at the match ups of the 2011 inter high), I assume that the characters are all made up, some details where modified (spoiler for the manga; the “final” in the manga was instead the semi-final in real life, the underdogs won in the manga 2 to 1, but lost 0 to 4 in real life… Some stuff where made more dramatic, like the strongest school having a 19 win streak, but only had at best 9 in real life [which is, huh, crazy enough when you think about it; also they have won 34 times (40 national titles including other comps) since the creation of the inter-high according to wikipedia, which means something like an 80% win rate?? wtf Edit: the comp started much earlier than I thought, they “only” have a 47% win rate Edit2: ah, but 57% since the creation of the school… it feels a bit unfair to count the comps prior to that ])
In that context, it kinda feels like a reporting on a “bizarro world” version of real events I wonder if that follows the spirit of the prompt?
I finished 母という呪縛 娘という牢獄 | L35 which technically could have filled Nonfiction, No one else has read it yet on Natively, and Added to Natively by Me – but I went with new to me author.
I gave it 4 stars but I wished for 3.5. I wouldn’t call it bad, but I had some issues with how the events were laid out.
Looking forward to wrapping my next book - I felt like I was falling behind everyone in bingo
4 stars / I absolutely love this book! Yes there is something I didn’t like about it hence the -1 but overall it was so so good, very enjoyable & I can’t wait to read book 2 of this series!
It’s not a workplace story per se, but I felt like enough of the novel either was set at the MC’s workplace or had to do with his job that it counts. And now I’ve got my first bing! (4 corners)
Added by me to Natively - 三十代で再召喚されたが、誰も神子だと気付かない | L28?? - A random suggestion from amazon, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it over the other BL isekais I’ve read so far. Not the worst either tho.
Read in a day - ハンチバック | L30 - Really enjoyed this, yes even with that last chapter, it added a layer of uncertainty and strangeness which, in my eyes, magnified the rest of this strange story.
Translated from English - トワイライト 上 ヴィレッジブックス | L30?? - Because why not. Bella’s Japanese manner of speaking is an uncanny over-the-top 女言葉 (think Hermione in the Japanese HP books). Having read a couple of research papers about this phenomenon in Japanese translation before, this ended up being quite a fun read for me.
Bookclub - スピリチュアルズ 「わたし」の謎 | L32?? - Pop science, questionable interpretations, pretty surface level stuff all around… I did not enjoy reading this.
Next up is Longest time of my TBR with 旅猫リポート | L29 !
TBR with a qualifier (Read the next book in a series you have started): ふしぎ古書店5 青い鳥が逃げだした! | L23
コンビニエンスストア様 | L24 was shorter than I thought! If you’ve liked コンビニ人間 you surely can give this one try. There’s also an audiobook that is included with audible. Audiobook was only 15 mins which should give you an idea how short this one is.
Today I finished 世界から猫が消えたなら (my sauna book) and to my great surprise I discovered just yesterday that it’s a debut
I take it although I only read 40-something % of the book this year, but it took me so long to read it (in terms of time passed, not reading time, because I did not go to the sauna very often in 2023) that I feel I should honour it by adding it to the bingo
In Germany we usually go into the sauna (the hot room) a number of times (usually 2-3 times), and we take a rest in between. That can mean lounging in a pool or lying in a deckchair. I usually choose the deckchair option, and that’s when I read (although most saunas are dry, and so I could in principle read in there as well - but I guess my hands would be too sweaty )
In Germany‘s saunas cellphones are forbidden for privacy reasons (because of the built-in cameras and because people are stark naked except when they don a bathrobe or towel) and so my sauna book needs to be a paper book that is easy enough for me that it doesn’t require any lookups. This doesn’t apply to most of my paper books yet so once I find such a gem I only read it in the sauna, which means pretty slow progress in the book, but so far it worked out well (I read 星の王子さま and now 世界から猫が消えたなら in this way, both of which are quite episodic in nature).
, and yesterday I rediscovered them in my browser 
so I can as well share them here)
])
although I only read 40-something % of the book this year, but it took me so long to read it (in terms of time passed, not reading time, because I did not go to the sauna very often in 2023) that I feel I should honour it by adding it to the bingo 
