Those of you who know me on Discord already know about my (un)dead spouse obsession, and I finally feel like I have enough books to make a list:
I’m not yet done with 禁じられた遊び but I’m nearly there and I have loved it so far so it’s going on the list.
Anyways, if you find a book that fits the criteria listed please send it my way. It seems to pull me out of reading slumps like none other.
I don’t know if this fits perfectly as it’s the spouse of a friend who is murdered, but maybe OUT 上 | L35 would sort of fit in as well?
Side note: I lent it to a Japanese friend, but she found it too gruesome… I don’t know how sensitive she is, though.
It’s quite long though, with 800 pages in total, and afaik there is no digital version available… but if you ever plan to read it, please let me know!
Oh, I’ve been planning (vaguely) to read that for quite some time! Everything thing I’ve heard about the author makes me think I’ll like her. I have 柔らかな頬 | L30?? by her which I should prioritize sometime 
If I remember correctly she’s known for イヤミス so not surprised someone found it too gruesome 
Same here 
Happy to read it together with you at some point!
Checked out her wikipedia page Natsuo Kirino - Wikipedia and yes, I think you and I might really like her 
TIL that this is a thing 
Always happy to read Kirino with you! I read everything that was translated before I started learning Japanese, and OUT was by far my favourite. I’d happily reread it. And I also have 柔らかな頬 waiting in my 積読.
That said, I don’t think it would necessarily fit the list. If I remember correctly, the dead spouse did not make a live reappearance 
read it in English, loved it.
I’m on a police procedural kick (when am I not, honestly?) and I’m starting to think that if someone really wants to practice all the ‘rare’ N2/N1 grammar they should go for police procedurals. Tons of keigo used in the police dialogues combined with dramatic literary prose.
Anyways, I got audiobook.jp’s 聞き放題 and I feel like the world is my oyster. I’m gonna listen to so ALL THE police procedurals. And probably some other stuff that people recommend. But mostly the former 
My summer reading slump, graphed 
Somehow sitting down to just read is so hard lately, even though I’m finally not traveling so frequently. I’m going to close the computer shortly and go make myself read a bit, I think.
I hope you’re doing okay otherwise. I’ve noticed that for me a reading slump tends to coincide with not feeling great in general. If you need some motivation, the horror book club pick seems pretty interesting so far
I usually only realize in hindsight, but it’s often the earliest sign that I am in a mental downward spiral. 
Take care of yourselves. 
I appreciate that 
I think for me it’s probably tightly linked to having a rather hectic travel schedule this year. I traveled every week to every other week for the past few months. Some work travel, some planned leisure, some unplanned family related.
But I have some breathing room now (at least for planned travel!) so hopefully I’ll get back into my normal groove soon
Nothing to do in the winter but sit around reading books 
I feel like there’s a Swedish or Norwegian word more specific than hygge about exactly this, but maybe it’s just hygge I’m thinking about 
体験した人でなければわからないと思うが、自分にしろ相手にしろ、生身の人間に刃物を向けるという行動は、よほどの覚悟がなければできない事である
I copied that from a book I’m reading. I had shared it elsewhere for other reasons (it’s kind of an unusual sentence after all) but I’m curious about perceived difficulty.
To me, this sentence reads very easily and clearly. I also acknowledge it has multiple clauses and at least one higher level grammar point (にしろ appears to be N2). None of the vocabulary is unusual or rare in my experience.
This book is pretty much all sentences like this and I’m likely to put it in the high 20s, maybe low 30s due to some unusual vocab in parts of the book.
Does that seem fair?
I guess I’m after a check on my own difficulty gauge.
I’d say low 30s rather than high 20s, but that’s because everything I have put in the high 20s (in terms of novel) have been much easier on all fronts.
I’d say somewhere in the 30s. I can get the gist of that sentence, but it’s long and I have to hold a lot of the clauses in my head at once to get the full meaning. I think I know all of the vocabulary, so it’s a grammar thing for me.
fwiw I hang around in the 23-26 end of the pool these days and with the crutch of subs/listening to audiobooks with text can push up to about 30 before I give up.
Lower intermediate here (I read in the range of 20-25), I would say I know all of the vocab and readings individually, but putting together the sentence meaning is still hard for me, mainly because there are many grammatical patterns interlinking and because getting used to Japanese ordering is still difficult for me.
After checking 生身, re-checking にしろ, and reading it three times, I agree that it‘s a straightforward sentence.
