As the title says. I’m just curious as to how everyone finds new books, new authors or new genres to dive into. So far my own experiences with finding books in Japanese has been through recommendations through the forums (either directly to myself or seeing what others are recommended depending on what they’ve asked about) or by coming across the images of books from things others on Natively want to read or have read.
That’s not to say I’m looking for new stuff right now but I’m just curious, what’s your go to for getting recommendations?
I check out the recommendations on Amazon JP based on my browsing/shopping, and I also like reading a couple of blogs like jtalkonline which give reviews and recommendations!
If I am interested in something specific, I’ll just google it and go through the lists and see if something strikes my fancy. But usually I’ll just pick up recs based on what others have read or what was introduced in videos of booktubers I watch. And sometimes I’ll look for books from authors I enjoyed (or found easy to read).
Nowadays I find it way easier to find new content. Blogs, booktubers, a look at what others are reading are all good sources. I also like to take my time and idly browse the Bookwalker store whenever there’s a discount on anything, much like I would do in a physical bookshop (discounts are just an opportunity to look at a subset of the books rather than the whole catalogue). Sometimes I use tags to narrow down the results, then look at any cover/title that looks vaguely interesting, then read the summary and maybe the sample. I made a few impulse purchases this way.
Sometimes I also browse the winners of book awards like the Akutagawa or Naoki prize. There are many awards for all sorts of genres, so there’s something for everyone.
Honestly, every book I’ve found so far has been from me coming across titles on the WK forum, thinking that sounds interesting, I want to read it someday!, adding it to my want-to-read list, then gradually being able to read more difficult novels as I slowly work through the list.
Some of it is browsing r/LightNovels - most of that sub has awful taste, but the weekly sticky has reviews from people who read in Japanese and sometimes there’s stuff that’s not complete schlock that comes up. I get the occasional one from Bookmeter from people I follow or, very rarely, from the 相性 list. Sometimes the Amazon algorithm throws up something that sounds interesting. Recently I’ve been looking up the publishing labels of books I’ve liked and see what they’ve released recently.
I also just google for stuff along some theme. When I was hunting up some science fiction, I found this page and bought a bunch of (mostly bad, so far) stuff.
I think I mostly get them off of the forums, reviews, or activity feeds here. Sometimes I’ll check what’s recommended on JP Kindle or Bookwalker deals. Sometimes I’ve found useful lists on MyAnimeList, or googled “top Yuri manga” or “manga like XYZ”, etc. Also checking out other series from publishers or authors I already like.
I do hope to make Natively a better discovery platform in the future. After Korean is launched, I think the major product goals are all around improving discovery & sharing (content tags, favorites, AI recommendations, club support).
Obviously a lot of work to do and it won’t really replace a lot of what you all are talking about, but could be pretty sweet I think!
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