He has written a truly spectacular number of books. One of the ones I’m currently working through is one of his fast paced pulp ones.
Also 東野圭吾 had a Christmas short story in 素敵な日本人. I remember the detective’s name was something like 三田 (read さんた) 
6 Likes
No ebook of course. 
3 Likes
I realized today I had forgotten my goal to try to read 黄金仮面 again before EOY (paperback, with audiobook so basically - can I read it without lookups) after failing last December. My copy is 345 pages 
I…may need to put some books on the back burner until next year 
4 Likes
Hello again!
Today I started and finished (at least for now) this manga series 僕の妻は感情がない (series) | L24 which seems interesting. Also read the last two volumes of あそびあそばせ (series) | L26 and wtf 
.
This year I’ve been trying to get the “1000 volumes read” milestone. I started at around 400 and I’m currently at 948 so let’s hope I’m able to read the 52 volumes I need this December🤞🏻
8 Likes
I’m reading…a bunch of things. Started 黄金仮面, continuing 体育館の殺人、ユージニア、秋の牢獄、自殺行き往復切符, and 異世界の名探偵. Weee 
Anyways, came across possibly my favorite sentence of the year today in 異世界の名探偵:
泣いているというより、目から感情を吐いているようだ
I know 吐く can be used for things other than vomit, but damned if I can get myself to read it any other way.
9 Likes
Everyone and their dog should know by now that I have no self-control whatsoever when it comes to reading 
So, in case you also have no self-control and want to add something more to your reading schedule, come join me in this Advent Calendar reading challenge: 
As an extra argument, the book is free on Kindle Unlimited if you have access. Of course you can join with a different book too if you prefer.
4 Likes
So I’ve thought long and hard about this (and took a walk to distance myself), and I must respectfully decline. orz Only because I’ve got more books than I can easily keep up with at the moment, though. 
I have dutifully wishlisted the book, however!
@basilsauce, did you see that Scum Villain got a JP translation announced? By a different publisher than MXTX’s other books, interestingly.
On that note, it’s the final month of the year! Where am I book-wise?
- おばちゃんたちのいるところ-Where The Wild Ladies Are | L32 - I’m behiiiind. Haven’t read last week or this week, and the next section starts tomorrow. @.@ Honestly considering dropping this book. It’s been fine so far; the short stories have been varied. I just always feel like this ends up being “gotta check this off” versus something I really look forward to opening.
- 体育館の殺人 | L31 - Keeping up with it. The audiobook’s been a godsend with how crazy my schedule’s been lately. I haven’t been reading as deeply as I normally do because of it, but my reading speed vastly increases with the narration, which helps a ton with my schedule.
- FLESH & BLOOD 7 | L34 - Was hoping to start this past Monday, but I’ve just had absolutely no time. Setting a start date for January 1 or so at latest; I’m hoping that once I’m on vacation from work this month I can start early.
- 異世界でおまけの兄さん自立を目指す | L29 - This continues to be my “pick it up when I’m caught up with everything else”, which hasn’t been often lately. Might see if I can prioritize this this month somehow to go ahead and finish it up before the year turns.
Books that’ve been on the “read next” docket:
- 秋の牢獄 | L31 - Loool, it’s a good think I didn’t start this
or ユージニア. It had a good chance, and then everything basically ground to a halt the past few weeks. Probably going to be a new years book unless a miracle happens. - 星の王子さま | L22 - Short enough I can still trick myself into reading it.
- https://learnnatively.com/book/47dbe61799/ and D.Gray-man reverse 3 Lost Fragment of Snow | L29 - Sooo I’m still holding out hope I can read through both. At least one, maybe? I’m a huge fan of D.Gray-Man, and started off my year this year by reading the first LN in this series, which I really enjoyed. The goal in the back of my mind was to make the third LN the last book I read this year; start and end nicely, you know? Still possible; I just need to concentrate and knock out everything else first. >.<
I also need to decide if I want to add my manga to my profile next year. I’ve been holding off on doing so so far because I liked how nice and neat my Natively library looked, but as I read more books it grows, and at some point I have to wonder if it’ll make any difference if I add a hundred volumes of manga or so.
I’m also a bit concerned that adding all the manga I haven’t finished will add pressure for me to actually read them; I’m an inveterate list checker-offer, so it rankles a small part of my brain to see so many things in the Owned section that will likely not get checked anytime soon, if at all. (As for why ‘at all’, it’s just a matter of time and priority. If I could I would inhale every book possible this instant, but I haven’t yet mastered that trick…) I’m already having time issues with the stuff I’m currently doing, so adding in that extra internal pressure to add manga to my consideration pile gives me pause.
I dunno, might be worth it to start a (really informal) manga reading club. Something like, “what did you read this month?” kind of thing. If I’m looking forward to sharing about what I’ve read with others it might help. 
Will need to consider.
I also want to contribute to 吸血鬼 research and appreciation at some point in the new year. No real plans for that spinning around; might be worth talking with @Drinos about setting up a 吸血鬼 book of the every other month initiative or something.
sigh I set out to write this post to complain about all the books I don’t have time to read, and half of it is talking about all the extra books I can’t wait to start…
9 Likes
You could satisfy your desire to check lists and give Natively a second book club if you did a manga reading club. 
Also I’m in the midst of my Aozora short story (…and essay) Advent adventure! Link for those interested.
It’s a total grab bag so I make no promises that any given day will be a good read, but they’re all “under 30 minutes” and the bulk are <10 pages so quite doable day to day. The only thing I conscientiously did when making the list was leave out two authors I dislike and if I previewed the text and it looked like poetry I also left it out. I might still have to adjust some titles as I didn’t get a chance to preview everything, but hopefully it goes well!
7 Likes
The possible downside to this is that now I would have tons of interesting manga suggested by people now on my to-read list, pushing the stuff already on there further back.
A manga club’s an easy one, though; I’m surprised Natively doesn’t have one yet.
4 Likes
Started volume 3 of New Game today. I’m really enjoying it so far. A surprising amount actually considering I liked (but didn’t love) the anime. It’s really easy too, but with the bonus of being good practice for Kansai dialect since one of the characters has a relatively heavy accent (more than just the や and へん stuff that is really prevalent in media).
6 Likes
50% points back sale for many Manga Time Kirara series on Amazon right now. As usual, other sites probably have the same sale. Strangely, some series only have middle volumes on sale instead of the first volume. Here are the ones I recommend with the first volume on sale.
- ぼっち・ざ・ろっく！ (actually 50% off instead of points back)
- 紡ぐ乙女と大正の月
- 星屑テレパス
Volumes 4 and 5 of New Game were the only volumes on sale for that series, but that’s pretty convenient since those are the ones I’m up to next! Some other series on my wish list are on sale too, but I haven’t decided whether to get them.
4 Likes
It took me awhile to warm up to it, but I’m starting to enjoy 異世界の名探偵. The moral of this story is that while I’m not much into young adult fiction tropes, I’m a sucker for detective novel tropes.
Slightly better than the moral of the short story I read today, which might have been that otters don’t feel remorse.
Also, shout out that I have a reading club kicking off in January on the WK forums for 半落ち | L35?? - by the same author as 64 | L38 which it’s no secret I adored. Happy to have reading companions 
4 Likes
I can definitely see a direct EPUB import and Vocab export tool.
I’m still updating the Anki Dojo addon that can convert passages to Anki cards directly (with audio, definition etc.).
Right now you can import text files, images, Kindle db, and csv (for Immersion Reader primarily), but I could definitely see a feature to import an entire EPUB book or select which chapters to import.
2 Likes
I finally finished 忘れえぬ魔女の物語, and ugh how disappointing. You know I was bored reading this book because I finished 14 volumes of manga between finishing the previous book I read and this one. When I’m enjoying the books I’m reading, I often only finish 1-3 volumes of manga in between. Here’s my review for those curious: seanblue's review of 忘れえぬ魔女の物語 1 | Natively.
Now I need something I know I’ll like, so back to 本好き I go!
8 Likes
Random rant
When I find who called 本好き a ライトノベル instead of a full fledged 小説, I’ll hit them with the books
I ended buying physical aside from digital, as I want to see actual progress in pages and the future intention of re-reading in paper.
6 Likes
Lightnovel has nothing to do with whether a book is thick or not. It’s more about the type of story contained, the target audience and whether or not there are pictures. In the west, they would generally fall under the classification of “young adult”, probably. I don’t think 小説 ever come in series of 20+ volumes.
But 本好き is great… I can also recommend the audiobook which is fantastic. 
5 Likes
The audiobook is so expensive… I was planning a read along with it, but damn 105000JPY for the whole set hurts
it’s included in audible’s 聞き放題, which is not expensive, imo. I currently can get 3 months for 99 Yen each or something. And the first month should be free. 
1 Like
That’s region locked to a Japanese card sadly
nope. I have been using it for a long time with my Austrian card. Only kindle won’t work for me. 
