I have been tracking my books since 2012 and not reading for me is a clear indication that my mental health is not good. It’s like an early warning sign, but I only ever realize once I am past whatever was the problem.
(Please ignore 2021. That was an experiment that I would not recommend. 2013 I discovered audiobooks which is why there is a significant increase from then on.)
I am glad you found your reading bug again.
I am not in love with gideon the ninth, but bookriot has a cool list, with recs based on what exactly you liked about the book. Read These 10 Books If You LOVED Gideon the Ninth | Book Riot
The only books I read on that list are MIddlegame (loved it!), the Murderbot series (it’s good fun) and this is how you lose the war (don’t remember much, but ppl loved it); There might be something on here for you.
very much agree with that, though that’s not the only factor which has modulated my reading ability. (the internet. getting internet was a disaster for my reading. wouldn’t want to miss it anyway).
and thanks for the recommendations ^^ i’ve heard good things about This is how you lose the Time War, i’ll have to pick it up when i get a chance.
I wish to read most of my L13-19 manga. And read enough L20-26 'til it become a similar experience to the one I currently have reading L13-19 ones (i.e. in terms of ease of understanding the grammar and everything).
I find LN particularly difficult, most of the ones in my 積読 list are L27+. I’d like to start reading one by the end of the year.
My main goal this year is to read 魔女の宅急便. Getting a EPUB reader that has instant lookup yomichan func has helped significantly.
But I still need to start smaller and just read more widely. I have been reading NHK Easy for some time fairly decently but I still get tired after 3 or 4 articles. So I need to build my stamina.
Recently finished フライングウィち1 to my surprise, so I think my level is closer to here than to Kiki. So will probably start trying to read around here, and check the other threads for recs on big slabs of text to try and read.
I’ve not been reading for too long, so I guess my main goals for the year would be:
Not specifically related to reading, but Anki every day unless I’m away from home.
Read something, however much or little I can manage, 5 or more days a week.
Dubious if it’ll happen this year but I’d love to read (or at least begin) an actual book, not a manga. I’m interested in かがみの孤城 and have seen there’s an edition aimed at younger kids so maybe that one! Still undecided though.
I didn’t think I’d have any specific goals for 2023, apart from the nebulous “reading more than in 2022” - but I just realized that getting out of my comfort zone would make a great goal!
So, here goes.
In 2023, I’d like to…
…start and finish at least two manga without furigana. (Hopefully that’ll cure me of my fear of leaving furigana behind without being able to use Yomichan…)
…start and finish a book from the L27+ orange zone. (My highest level so far has been L24.)
…finish up at least the main storyline of Yokai Watch 1. (And maybe even the same for Pokemon Legends: Arceus too!)
I’ll also do that at some point (maybe even with the orange zone book) for listening comprehension, but since I can’t add audio to those manga I’d still be afraid of furigana-less manga afterwards
My plan is to jump in at the deep end in the hopes that a) I realize that I already recognize most of the kanji used and that b) I’ll quickly get used to using tools to recognize kanji I don’t know yet and it doesn’t turn out to be too annoying.
A bit late but my reading goals for this year are to read more in Japanese that isn’t from a textbook or a graded reader/ guided reader, though the Read Real Japanese series is something I’ll dip back into again after a bit.
I’ve made a start on キノの旅 light novels and read a little so far though I’ve had to look a lot up. A page is about 20-30 minutes for me though most of that is looking up kanji compound words where I’m familiar with the individual kanji but I’ve forgotten the reading of or just don’t know what it is in s compound word.
Ultimately I’d love to get through all of the キノの旅 light novels this year as well as some of the other native level novels, short stories and manga I’ve got but I think I may need to possibly re-read some of キノの旅 after completing them so I can understand them a little better before moving on once I’ve finished reviewing the N5/N4 and lower N3 grammar I’m learning.
My goal is very simple and that’s to continue reading. I’d like to say that I should make it a goal to buy less books but I know myself well and that’s not going to happen.
First of all I want to get my textbook work done before.
I would like to start reading Japanese literature step by step. So I have made up some books I want to start reading in English first, maybe later in Japanese.
Here is my list for 2023:
Moshi Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto
Tagame Berlin by Oe Kenzaburo
Strange weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami
If cats dissapeared from the world by Genki Kawamura
The last shogun by Ryotaro Shiba
If I feel ready to read in Japanese I want to begin with the Harry Potter series as I am collecting them right now and know the story by watching the movies.
This is the first year I’ve started to read novels after learning Japanese on and off for 10 years. I started with また同じ夢を見ていた in December, and my goal (in addition to other forms of immersion) is to finish 12 novels within the first half of this year. This site and JPDB have been immensly helpful in getting me organized and motivated enough to make this happen, and I feel like my Japanese comprehension has already improved so much! Looking forward to this rest of this year.
I don’t particularly have any concrete reading goals for the year. Last year I read almost 20~ volumes of manga and finished 8 visual novels so I guess this year I would like to read even more than that. I don’t time how fast I read but I do know that I read pretty slow in jp so I hope by the end of the year that I can read faster.
Things that I definitely want to read this year:
アカイイト - I have been wanting to read this for like a decade and its finally getting a PC release this year so I am going to try and read it in jp once its out.
カルタグラ～ツキ狂イノ病～ - I love Innocent Grey’s games and the remaster for this game is coming out in April so I will pick it up around then. The remastered art looks so much better from what I’ve seen on twitter and it’ll be fully voiced so I am glad I waited to play it
早咲きのくろゆり - Looks like a cute yuri game. It was crowd funded and I’ve been following the dev on twitter for a while so I’m excited to see it finally come out later this year.
sorry for the late post! My goal this year is 10,000 pages read. I don’t read many light novels (with a few notable exceptions ) so it’s mainly regular novels of all kinds, crime fiction and the like for me. I rather lean towards well-written books which easily crosses the border to Literature, and that can still be hard to understand for me. But no pain, no gain
There’s an incredible amount of excellent Swedish crime fiction authors, so wrt that criterion the language is a good choice!
Uhhh, I must confess after the Tuberose fail I’m not so convinced about this any more
That’s a good call, I should try this more (as my 積読 pile is higher than 100 books…)
(Hey, good to see you again! )
This is me as well. I don’t think I ever was at 100 novels per year, but I’ve stopped reading fiction altogether during the past 20 or more years. Japanese got me back into reading again, and currently I’m extending this to other languages as well (German, English, some French) and enjoying it a lot. Happy to see you’re also getting back on the reading train
That’s some impressive 積読. Better start nominating them, then. But I could never not take part in a book club for a book that looks interesting just because I don’t have it yet (or resist buying a few more books along with it since I’m already in the -online- shop)…
2013 I discovered audiobooks which is why there is a significant increase from then on.)
) so it’s mainly regular novels of all kinds, crime fiction and the like for me. I rather lean towards well-written books which easily crosses the border to Literature, and that can still be hard to understand for me. But no pain, no gain 
)