What are you reading today?

[cat]

@Naphthalene

I remember that the author of 先生とそのお布団 | L28 does part time jobs on the side.

Honestly they’re not writing about that dissimilar of content either from what I remember you saying about that book

[暁のルナ]

I mostly meant my comment as humor. Tbh I’m not interested in the new polls either way (I’m fine with what’s already there)

@Legato

I actually quite like isekai, I’m just joking considering it’s terrible reputation. (Although yeah, the genre is full of garbage.)

I’m neutral on it. There’s good and bad. It’s just, if that’s all I know, it doesn’t tell me anything aside from “this story falls into a generic trend, and probably isn’t that interesting”… Which sometimes it’s fine, but if I’m gonna read something that’s by the numbers, I’d rather find a random yuri story than another generically “Stuck in Another World with Some Mild Gimmicky Twist”. Otoh, give me a title like “Ascendance of a Bookworm” or the other two I mentioned, and now you’ve got my attention!

@Legato

I wonder if I’d like the 転天 more in it’s light novel form. I watched the anime, and the beginning was absolutely glorious. But the latter part soured me on it

I’m not that far into it, so I guess I’ll see how I feel later on. If you do read the LN, I definitely recommend the audiobook. It’s really excellently narrated, with the various characters!

[Legato]

@暁のルナ

If you do read the LN, I definitely recommend the audiobook. It’s really excellently narrated, with the various characters!

That’s good to know! I never was into English audiobooks, but after the great experience with また、同じ夢を見ていた I think I newly awakened to reading together with Japanese ones

[暁のルナ]

Yeah same… No appeal in English, but for language acquisition they’re super helpful!!

[seanblue]

@暁のルナ

If you do read the LN, I definitely recommend the audiobook. It’s really excellently narrated, with the various characters!

Do you know of any audiobook sources that have it besides Audible? I’m always a bit scared to try to get Audible because I’ve heard it has different restrictions compared to Kindle and I don’t want to risk getting my Amazon JP account locked.

(Also, buying audiobooks on Amazon is way too expensive and I don’t know if I’d listen consistently enough for the subscription…)

[bungakushoujo]

@cat

I was curious about who wrote it though, because it was very clearly not a historian and I found this about the author:

1963年、横浜市出身。トラック運転手、学習塾の時間講師、コンビニ店長、経営実務資料の編集、販促ツール等の営業、フリーペーパー記者、派遣労働者、夜間工場内作業員など数々の職業を経験。
91年からフリーライターとして活動開始。歴史や世相、庶民生活などといったジャンルのほか、企業関係や事件・犯罪に関するテーマも手がける。現在、肉体労働系の仕事と平行して執筆業を続けている。

I love this. I feel like I can imagine the type of person the author is. Was the book good though?!

[暁のルナ]

No idea. I have Audible unlimited… the only real restriction difference I remember was not being able to buy Kadokawa after a certain point… which was solved by adding a JP address after everything had been set up. Also I think I had to set up the subscription through the Play Store, rather than Audible JP directly… but I don’t clearly remember. Anyway, if you’re that worried, you can just make a separate Amazon JP account that has nothing to do with your normal one.

Tbh idk that I use it enough (I read too much manga), but it comes out to like $6 USD / month, which is probly cheaper than buying even a single audiobook on there. It’s frustrating audiobooks seem to be so provider-locked… 仕方がない

[cat]

I’m only about 20% in but I’m enjoying it so far! It’s very dramatic. He likes to bold the most salacious sentences

[Biblio]

@暁のルナ

I’m intrigued that (seemingly) everyone else correctly/identically identified which way the scale worked, besides me

I did not. I thought it was a point system at first, not a ranking system. But after reading comments, I changed my vote around.

[Naphthalene]

@Naphthalene

@pm215

歴史的仮名遣い, but I don’t suppose that’s what they had in mind

I don’t think so? Otherwise they are wildly underestimating me (which I doubt).

I just read the first section, and it was weird, but nothing that would qualify as painful yet.

Okay, I just finished it. I guess I see the connection now.
Every time anything happens, the main character/narrator (/author?) starts feeling some unsettling sense of dread and despair, that he can only clear by taking a bunch of sleeping pills. I guess the difference is that, here, the character is clearly unhinged. Sky is a bit cloudy? The author: “and I took that personally”. Plus, there’s no broad generalization (he is not saying everyone should feel uneasy about people wearing raincoats).
But… yes, I guess it is another form of pain, considering how the author died.
Between this guy and Dazai Osamu, Japanese literature requires some mental fortitude.

[mic]

@Naphthalene

Sky is a bit cloudy? The author: “and I took that personally”

This would be funny if it were about a character. Is it about 芥川龍之介? I read the story where he planned his suicide 或旧友へ送る手記, and I also found it funny until I understood that it he actually did it…

[Naphthalene]

@mic

This would be funny if it were about a character. Is it about 芥川龍之介?

Unclear to me. It seems so, but no one is named. I don’t know enough about him to check if the events in there match reality.
But, yeah, the last sentence is literally him (the main character?) wishing to err become unalive.
A great time for the whole family.

[eefara]

@eefara

I’m reading books, I promise. I need to make an update here soon…

It’s time; the prophecy must be fulfilled.

…Quite honestly, my reading has been destroyed by work for the last…two months? Three? I’m so tired you guys.

Finished (reviews posted for all books except the re-read)

• あなたも殺人犯になれる! | L27 - This was a great book for my tired brain. I was a bit sad the “twist” was so obviously transparent; there was no mystery in my murder at all. Or maybe it wasn’t supposed to be a murder mystery? Just a murder thriller?
• Random manga: となりの番犬 | L23, 新しい上司はど天然 1 | L23, 鬼の花嫁は喰べられたい 1 | L23, 獣の王国 4 | L25 (this was a re-read; finally I can start the volumes I haven’t read yet!)
• 11月のギムナジウム | L28 - Finally finished for the BL Origins club. Decent little book of short stories. Honestly I’m coming to like the '70s style more and more. Not sure whether I’ll jump to トーマの心臓 | L24?? next or not, since it’s an adaption of one of the short stories.

In Progress
Finally 11月のギムナジウム is off my reading list

• 薬屋のひとりごと 2 | L38 - I am behiiiind. Other than that it’s going real well, though. Night and day compared to when I read the first book 2 years ago or so.
• 流沙の記憶 | L30?? - Written by the Flesh&Blood author! I’ve been wanting to read more of her works, and I finally decided to start with this one. Archaeologist time travels to ancient Egypt and (hopefully) falls in love; I’m loving it so far. I’m also incredibly excited to maybe follow it up with 王弟殿下とナイルの異邦人 | L30??, which as far as I can tell has the exact same premise down to the love interest being a blond Egyptian. They were published almost 30 years apart, so I guess it’s inevitable; I just got a kick out of finding out about them so close together.

Coming up if work doesn’t kill me

• 京都寺町三条のホームズ | L29 - I also have the audiobook to listen along to!
• FLESH & BLOOD 17 | L36 - My beloved
• 六番目の小夜子 | L30?? - I will find time. Somehow. >.<
• マスカレード・ホテル | L31 - dying noises
• ギンモクセイの仕立て屋 | L24 - if it wins the BL poll, which looking like it will. Thank god they’re manga

…Plus I want to do the listening challenge in August. I will do this. Somehow. The hard part is is that everything’s a good book. :3 I’ll probably collapse at some point and just withdraw from the world for a month, but that’s next week’s later eefara’s problem.

[eefara]

I’m not going to jinx it by touching the post now, but all my links rendered the first time. :3

[暁のルナ]

Omg I know that feeling so well lol

Good luck re: work - don’t push yourself too hard

[cat]

@eefara

This was a great book for my tired brain.

Lemme know if you need more tired brain books. I happen to enjoy the genre

[Legato]

@nikoru

At the same time you don’t get the usernames hover any more when hovering over the avatars in the “standard” polls
Noticed that already a few weeks ago on WK but I thought that WK had hiccup’ed with the forums - now it seems that the update landed here as well. This change is very very unhelpful in my opinion…

Btw, it seems that this wasn’t a conscious change since I found this bug fix here. So I assume it will come back in a future rollout.

[mic]

Finished chapter #1 of my first medical mystery manga series (all-in-all 3 volumes and finished): リウーを待ちながら 1. Interesting.

[nikoru]

@Legato

Btw, it seems that this wasn’t a conscious change since I found this bug fix here . So I assume it will come back in a future rollout.

Ah, that’s good to know!
BTW had no idea that it is an open source project - very nice!

[Aik]

I’m officially in a slump. Finished 竜歌の巫女と二度目の誓い2 薬を探す子供 | L32 a bit ago - it was fine, but not the boost I was hoping for. Read something in English for the first time in a while. Tried to start another Japanese novel but just couldn’t bring myself to care.

I have now started GUNSLINGER GIRL | L24??, which I picked up the lot of when I was in Japan. Maybe I should have bought more manga rather than novels I won’t get around to for years…
I read the fanlation over a decade ago - still remember basically how it goes and ready to be sad all over again. Definitely not an easy series though vocabulary-wise.