It’s starting tomorrow, I think.
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Does anyone know of any books or manga set in Amsterdam? Or anywhere in Holland?
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Here are some books: オランダを舞台にしたおすすめ小説│オランダjp
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アスク・ミー・ホワイ is set in Amsterdam if you like BL 
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Anyone have recs for Japanese books or papers covering the history of yuri, shoujo, or Class S? I have some good English ones. Also interested in history of feminism in Japan.
I know there’s this list: The Year 24 Group & The Shoujo Manga Revolution | Japanese list by bibliothecary | Natively - @bibliothecary any specific one you’d recommend starting with from there?
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In English, I have a copy that I’m partway through of “Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan” by Mikiso Hane, which is translations of extracts from primary sources plus Hane’s introductions to them giving their context. As the title suggests, their life stories don’t often have happy endings. I’m pretty sure at least some of these writers should be available in the original Japanese – if you’re interested I can check up on names when I get home. (Hane’s introductions I also found helpful in building up an understanding of what feminist groups and movements were around in the Meiji-to-WW2 period and how they interacted, or failed to interact – there are women and strands of feminist thought active in the early “commoners’ rights” movements, in strikes over poor conditions in factories, in the socialist and communist groups of the early 20th century, and in the “middle and upper class women pushing for more education for women” efforts. In Hane’s account these different groups usually did not manage to coordinate with each other very well and were sometimes at cross purposes.)
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It occurred to me that I might be partly mixing this up with the other English book on this topic that I’ve read, which is “Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan” by Sharon Sievers.
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I recently read a book in German focused on 伊藤 野枝. I would recommend maybe finding something about her, she was an feminist anarchist and editor of the feminist magazine 青鞜 (active from 1911 - 1915). Maybe you can find something good going from there, I found her life (and all the other people she surrounded herself with) to be very interesting and shockingly sad.
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I am in search for some easier non-manga books, say up to level 24, to relax between books that are on the more complicated side, and also for the bingo card as replacement for the last manga on my list of planned reads. Genre doesn’t matter.
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Obligatory ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 1 | L24 recommendation. Plus, if you end up liking it, there’ll be lots of volumes for you to read
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I didn’t like the anime adaptation, therefore I didn’t wishlist the book, but actually it could be quite interesting. Maybe I should just give it a try.
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知ってびっくり! 日本の歴史のお話 後編 | L21 is easy enough, though there’s a ton of names (up to 2 per person or location) with old readings, so idk how relaxing it will be. It is full furigana tho. Informal book club for it too
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Ah, a book of a Gakken series, 久しぶり. I wishlisted it. Alas, Surugaya doesn’t have it.
But your proposal actually let me find a book to replace the last non physical book of my list of planned bingo books. Thanks.
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A few sub-L24 works I enjoyed and can recommend:
- もしもの世界ルーレット あったら便利? “スペアの体”の使い方 他 | L22
- 少年探偵団-対決! 怪人二十面相 10歳までに読みたい日本名作 | L23
- ごんぎつね (おはなし名作絵本 1) | L20
- (I haven’t read 手ぶくろを買いに/ごんぎつね 10歳までに読みたい日本名作 | L23 yet, but it’s a short story collection by the same author and also includes ごんぎつね, so maybe that would be my recommendation instead.)
And in the “L25 is almost inside the L24 limit, right? Right?” category:
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These are some good novels, I think. And the winner for the bingo card is: もしもの世界ルーレット あったら便利? “スペアの体”の使い方 他.
また、同じ夢を見ていた | L25 I already read last year with the book club. Difficulty is floating between L24 and L26 depending on who read it last. 人狼サバイバル 1 絶体絶命! 伯爵の人狼ゲーム | L25 I already planned as my past book club book.
The other books I would have to buy, but I‘ll put them on the wish list. Thanks, and thank you all for your suggestions.
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Glad I could help, and that もしも is getting more love. I hope you’ll enjoy it!
What, really? I’d have assumed that at 2000+ gradings there would be some stability at least…
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No Natively prefers the most recent grading that much, that a book will never get a fixed level, I am afraid.
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Mm, same deal with 本好きの下剋上 shifting btwn L30 & 32 apparently
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I guess this is a side effect of using an ELO style system? For chess players, you expect their ability to vary slowly over time and so you want to care about how well they did this year much more than how they did a decade ago. But a book has a fixed difficulty level that’s never going to change, so it’s not quite the right dynamic…
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