Oh I remember that being so painful. Had to go back and check.
Still painful.
Haha how funny! well why not, that could be fun, the more the merrier
Around what time would it work for you to be reading it? And @Biblio ?
I’m thinking not just now, have a few things in progress already, so maybe around April or later would work best for me
I am very flexible, whatever works for you guys. I am just bad at attempting difficult books on my own. I need the peer pressure.
April onwards is also perfect for me since I have a few books I’m working through already! Start around the beginning of April? I can set up a thread when it gets closer
Sounds great, thanks
I’m planning on reading Granny Girl Hinata-Chan for retirement age.
The main character is an old granny that gets reincarnated and has trouble adjusting her granny ways to being a kindergardener with lots of references to what old people do and believe. She even gets called granny by others, cause of her ways. If you think that counts or not is up to you.
I already read a few chapters a while back, but in the end, it was to hard of a read then. It’s only rated L19, though, so it should be manageable for beginners, too
I had seen that one and considered it, I wasn’t sure if it would be a good fit judging from the cover only, but now that you mention the story sounds like a good fit to me!
I’m using this challenge to both clear my backlog and challenge myself a bit, so I will read the novel with Tohoku dialect now that I committed to it, but if anyone is interested Granny has been read on the Wanikani forum with the Absolute Beginner Book Club, link
whoops, I finished this book a while ago but forgot to add it to the card!
It doesn’t fit any of the prompts, so I’ll use it for the free space, since it is my first time finishing a book that is neither a graded reader nor a manga, and I’m feeling really proud!
(It is currently a temporary L21, but I suspect it’ll go down a little, so I don’t want to choose it for “new natively level”).
The card so far:
I’m currently working on “cover of your favourite colour”, and then the first bingo will be juuuuust around the corner.
Previous reads
우리우리 복댕이 | L16 Non-human protagonist
호랑이 들어와요 | L17 Book you keep hearing about
우리들의 식탁 | L17 Genre you don’t usually read
숲속의 담 1 | L17 Didn’t know the premise going in
딱 하나만 선택하라면, 책 | L19 A book about a book
숲속의 담 2 | L17 2nd volume of a series
나빌레라 1 | L19 Main character is retirement age or older
좋은 날이야, 네가 옆에 있잖아 | L21?? FREE SPACE!
February has been a bad month for me – the reading slump hit. I tried to read 천 개의 파랑 and remembered why I couldn’t get past 20% the first time: it’s too literary for me. I need ACTION to keep me MOTIVATED. Still, I will persevere… later.
I was given a soft recommendation of 언젠간 잘리고, 회사는 망하고, 우리는 죽는다 for nonfiction, but again, I hate nonfiction. So I’m about 10% through and will probably read a few pages once in a while.
I finished 용의자들 from a friend’s recommendation. Unfortunately, it dragged a lot for me due to the format and I did not like it. I put it on “went in blind” because I knew it would be a mystery from the title, but I didn’t read the blurb or anything (tbf I only read the blurb about half of the time in Korean). This is a good candidate for “one word title” and way easier than 파견자들, but you have to not mind reading about horrible people. I mind.
What’s next? Well I read a few pages of 눈물을 마시는 새, which I have been hearing about for ages from Korean fantasy reading friends, and oh my god it’s at less than 94% comp and 600 pages long… idk…
I also downloaded some more mystery novels, like 한여름의 방정식, 백야행 (히가시노 게이고 is my comfort pick now ig) and 십각관의 살인.
Also important question: are we allowed to move books around after the fact? Idk how I’m going to find another book with a number in the title…
There’s no rule against it! I’ve done it, as well as at least several other people.
sure why not! if you need approval, ask @taiyousea said I could do what I wanted with my own card - she is the bingo police if you weren’t aware
(so I took my own library and went through what I really wanted to read)…and picked names for squares and then told the bingo thing to shuffle! Each square has a planned (or mostly planned book) … so hopefully I won’t have to suffer reading something I don’t wanna… 嫌だ!!
The downside is there is something I want to read for every square and little time so blackout feels completely impossible…will see (readathons are coming)
Bingo square update since I’ve finished a few more books!
New additions:
2nd volume of a series: 海がきこえるII アイがあるから (徳間文庫 トクマの特選!) | L27
It was not as good as the first book in my personal opinion.
Book I keep hearing about: ツミデミック | L31
Loved this, it was a super fun read.
Disability: 死者の奢り・飼育 | L41
The narrator with a disability was specifically only in one short story (他人の足) but I will count it. About the book in general, it was ザ・純文学.
February update:
- Set outside Japan: たったひとりのサバイバル・ゲーム! 極寒の雪山を脱出せよ | L21
- Anything / free spot: SLAM DUNK 3 | L23
- New Natively level: ドラえもん一年生 学年別ドラえもん名作選 | L16
- One word title: ハルタ 2020-AUGUST volume 77 | L31 (I’m tracking the series I’m reading in Harta in Natively separately by volume, but by now I’ve read more than a volume’s worth of one shots and commentary in Harta, I’m going to count it!)
Previous squares
- January:
- Category: Read a book and its adaptation
- I read シャドーハウス Vol 1 (Shadows House) and watched the first 2 anime episodes that perfectly cover Volume 1. It was great - definitely recommend!
- 昴とスーさん 1巻 | L22 Category: unusual genre for me. I’ve never read a slice of life manga, and this also has other elements I don’t want to spoil that I’ve not approached yet. I left the first review if anyone is interested, I definitely recommend.
- Category: Read a book and its adaptation
- しろくまカフェbis 3 | L19 Category: favorite color cover (I love green and blue!). The cute world of panda, polar bear, and penguin can always brighten my day
I didn’t have much energy this month, so I mostly read easy stuff.
Title includes a number: クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった | L27
A sweet high school friendship/romance story. I am glad that they finally stopped hiding their relationship. I can empathise with the reasons, but it was frustrating to see. I think pretty much every problem they faced was because they kept it a secret.
Retirement age character: メタモルフォーゼの縁側 | L21
Read all 5 volumes. I enjoyed it. It was nice to see some intergenerational friendship and how both main characters had different problems to deal with because they are at different points in their lives. And it is always nice to see how hobbies and shared interests can bring people together.
Now I just need to catch up on all the book clubs I’ve been neglecting
Previous stuff
Released year of birth: 夏泊殺人岬 | L33
Non-human protagonist: 転生したらドラゴンの卵だった ~最強以外目指さねぇ~ 1 | L30
Cats: 猫の浮世絵 「江戸の猫ぐらし」の巻 | L31
Set where I’ve lived: 博多豚骨ラーメンズ | L33
No ratings/gradings/reviews: サクラの守る街 | L32
I finished the second volume of 히카루가 죽은 여름 2 | L19, following a recommendation from eefara, so here goes another square!
The series is finally earning its BL tag (or maybe I didn’t understand enough to notice it in the previous chapters). I’m looking forward to reading book 3!
I also just remembered a bingo modifier that I wanted to do, which was to have a rainbow coloured line / column / diagonal. That’s going to be much harder than I thought, so I’ll leave it for the end of the year, ond once I have more books on there maybe I can manage to move some around to get a rainbow… and if not, that’s fine too.
Previous reads
우리우리 복댕이 | L16 Non-human protagonist
호랑이 들어와요 | L17 Book you keep hearing about
우리들의 식탁 | L17 Genre you don’t usually read
숲속의 담 1 | L17 Didn’t know the premise going in
딱 하나만 선택하라면, 책 | L19 A book about a book
숲속의 담 2 | L17 2nd volume of a series
나빌레라 1 | L19 Main character is retirement age or older
좋은 날이야, 네가 옆에 있잖아 | L21?? FREE SPACE
히카루가 죽은 여름 2 | L19 Recommended to you
Another few ticked off
Title includes a number - サード・キッチン (河出文庫 し 31-1) | L31
This could have been a fairly plain college coming-of-age novel, but actually it covered a lot of ground, from general language barriers, to the Iraq war.
Also I hope ’Third’ in the title counts as a number!
Unusual Genre to me - しまなみ誰そ彼 1 | L25
Just manga alone is somewhat unusual to me, so I’ve put this here.
Really beautifully drawn LGBT youth manga.
One word title - 伊藤潤二傑作集 1 富江 上 | L25
冨江 perhaps I slightly preferred ぎょ! by the same author, but still feels like a classic horror manga.
Past picks
Character of retired (age!) - 三世代探偵団 次の扉に棲む死神 | L24
No Reviews - ぬるい毒 | L35
Past book club - 木洩れ日に泳ぐ魚 | L32
Finished one bingo square:
- Keep hearing about it - 四つ子ぐらし 1 ひみつの姉妹生活、スタート! - 2.5 look-ups/page, 14.8% zero look-up pages, now at L23. So based on these data, for me it was more difficult than また、同じ夢を見ていた, which is currently at L26. Though I think it’s more the other way round like また夢 is easier than 四つ子.
And I will finish from next week onwards:
- Favorite color cover - 幻獣調査員, so far I wonder how long the MC could survive if she hadn’t her ardent body guard.
- I discovered in Wikipedia that one of my not yet read short stories in ボッコちゃん was released in the year of my birth. So I will take the chance to finally finish a book that I started almost two years ago. Great advantage, it feels easier to read after that pause.
Having read both of them when they were at my reading level my thoughts are:
L26 feels harsh for また夢, but it does have a lot harder grammar/sentence style than most books with its vocabulary.
四つ子 is easier but especially the first one has a lot of 施設 language up front. And then ymmv with how difficult the kansaiben is (for me harder than Kero from CCS but still doable).
As a more advanced reader, I think the grammar difficulties of また夢 falls away and it becomes an easier book as its vocab is slightly more common. The later 四つ子 books so far have also been easier than the first, imo.
I bought the first ten volumes in advance and will definitely continue.
せやな
Yes, for また夢 I ended up at 2.1 look-ups/page with 17.1% zero look-up pages, which is no big difference compared to the 2.5 look-ups/page, 14.8% zero look-up pages of 四つ子.