all the examples are from real classical texts; they’re never made up
the reader has extensive grammar and vocabulary notes, and for the first texts in the books it has a complete word by word annotation of what part of speech each word is
Not so good points:
the grammar is presented in a very academic way, starting with all the verb inflections, and then all the irregular verbs (none of which you can actually use without an auxiliary verb to tack on the end), after that running through all the auxiliary verbs in turn, and so on. It’s all presented clearly but I found it didn’t really stick in my head because it felt like a logical puzzle analysis rather than a language…
they’re not cheap…
I was vaguely pondering looking for an introduction to classical Japanese written in modern Japanese (there must be a ton of these given the high school student audience), and using that for structure with the Shirane books for backup/reference.
It’s aimed at high school students, so it’s probably a fair bit lighter and not as encompassing as the other ones. Flipping through it, they pick a couple points to explain and then have a passage showing that point off, with annotations and the relevant modern equivalent right next to it, plus the modern translation as a whole so you can check your understanding. It looks very light and friendly, as far as textbooks go.
What I think it pretty cool is that they have a section on ‘kobun common sense’, where they go into for example clothes at the time, and that they have a timeline of historical works with short explanations.
This part in particular sounds very interesting. One thing that always challenges me when reading older books is clothing. I often don’t know the word and or how the clothes even look, so I have to end up googling them.
I checked the (sadly only 2) pages pertaining to clothes, and it mostly details the differences in gender specific clothed to help the reader keep characters apart. It does have pictures showing what’s what which I think is helpful though. I took pictures of those 2 pages so you don’t need to buy the book for them. Maybe there’s something in there you didn’t know yet.
Oh nice, I already had 高村薫 on my wishlist, but unfortunately her books seem to be available physically only, and I could not yet grab hold of them (only tried BookOff Paris so far, though…). I’d also be interested in her Naoki Prize winner マークスの山(上) | L30?? . So if you ever plan to read something from her, please let me know! (with enough heads-up time )
I actually haven’t read it myself yet so I’m not sure what the pov is, but there is an English translation with a more informative blurb:
English blurb
Tokyo, 1995. Five men meet at the racetrack every Sunday to bet on horses. They have little in common except a deep disaffection with their lives, but together they represent the social struggles and griefs of post-War Japan: a poorly socialized genius stuck working as a welder; a demoted detective with a chip on his shoulder; a Zainichi Korean banker sick of being ostracized for his race; a struggling single dad of a teenage girl with Down syndrome. The fifth man bringing them all together is an elderly drugstore owner grieving his grandson, who has died suspiciously after the revelation of a family connection with the segregated buraku community, historically subjected to severe discrimination.
Intent on revenge against a society that values corporate behemoths more than human life, the five conspirators decide to carry out a heist: kidnap the CEO of Japan’s largest beer conglomerate and extract blood money from the company’s corrupt financiers.
Inspired by the unsolved true-crime kidnapping case perpetrated by “the Monster with 21 Faces,” Lady Joker has become a cultural touchstone since its 1997 publication, acknowledged as the magnum opus by one of Japan’s literary masters, twice adapted for film and TV and often taught in high school and college classrooms.
The cast of characters sounds interesting so I definitely want to read it myself one day…just need a physical copy.
This might be a weird request but does someone have recommendations for books with owls? Can be fiction or nonfiction and doesn’t need to solely be about them.
キッチン | L31 is only 200 pages; at L31 it’s a little above your preferred difficulty range but not by much. I read it fairly early in my reading progress and found it fairly manageable.
And another idea, also one from 吉本ばなな like @pm215’s suggestion: Japanese Books Difficulty List | Natively (不倫と南米). It’s level 28, and under two hundred pages. I’m reading it right now in fact, and the paperback is filled with beautiful full color prints of paintings and the authors personal photographs from her times traveling in Argentina. I didn’t realize it would have prints when I bought it, but I am really glad I got a physical edition because of that. The short stories are also nice.
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book is インストール by 綿矢りさ.
