What are you reading today?

[9Sora2]

Finished 青ブタ vol 11 and decided to read a volume from a different LN since I’ve been basically reading this for like 6 volumes straight (with some novels and a VN inbetween but still…) so I started reading ドラゴンクライシス vol 3

Do you guys binge read whole series? I used to randomly read a volume from lile each series I own but that way you barely make any progress on one series, that’s why I wanted to focus on one series and while I enjoyed 青ブタ vol 11 I kinda worry that it’d get boring if I didn’t read at least one volume from another series now.
Maybe I should alternate between two LN series at a time

[CatDQ]

@9Sora2

Do you guys binge read whole series?

It depends. At the moment my focus is to binge the whole series of whatever I’m reading but usually if I feel my attention slipping, I will switch things up.

If I’m really enjoying something I will just binge it though, even in English (not been the first time I’ve read a full saga of books across a weekend )

If I’m using it for focused study however, I will switch things up so it doesn’t get too overwhelming, especially if something is on the more difficult side.

I do find manga easier to binge than light novels or even children’s books in Japanese but that might change once I can read better.

[Snappie]

I started reading サイレント・ウィッチ III 沈黙の魔女の隠しごと | L30 and I’m hyped for it. It’s probably going to take me a month like the last volume but it’s well worth it.
Only read the prologue and a bit of the first chapter so far and I already like the set up of the book.

[CatDQ]

Currently reading 週末、森で. It’s a chill, easy going manga about work, life and remembering to stop and take a break every now and then.

The art is simplistic and the language seems to follow suit with the odd unusual word here and there (bird names, mushroom names, occasional work words for jobs and such) but otherwise it’s every day stuff at a leisurely pace.

Each “chapter” is a few pages long and mostly contains dialogue between at least 2 of the characters with some inner thoughts and narrative points. Some are a little thought provoking but nothing seems overly dramatic if that makes sense. Most is informal speech but if they are speaking with customers or higher level co-workers then there is some more formal dialogue.

My copy seems to have a snow bunny photography at the end of it which is kinda cute.

[earwen]

Finished 変な地図 | L29 and left a review due to the recent discussions about leaving reviews.

Now I hope to finish 安達としまむら 2 | L31 before the end of the month and then my next novel will probably be スキュラ&カリュブディス―死の口吻―(新潮文庫nex) | L30??

I have not been focusing on manga but I should read ひぐらしのなく頃に 鬼曝し編 1 | L24?? for my phyiscal tbr soon, I stopped at the first chapter.

[暁のルナ]

@9Sora2

Do you guys binge read whole series?

If it’s compelling enough, not overly difficult, and I own the volumes, yes. Like 灰と幻想のグリムガル | L31 or https://learnnatively.com/series/494308d39c/ were very bingeable, but 凜として弓を引く 青雲篇 | L27 is the sorta thing I’m good to read one at a time/when I’m in the mood. If ソードアート・オンライン | L33 were easier, I would binge it, but usually by the time I finish one book, I’m done for a bit.

[暁のルナ]

@暁のルナ

Finished Part 1 of ウィキッド 誰も知らない、もう一つのオズの物語 上 | L30?? . It was not the most interesting, but

I got to 50% and finally decided it just wasn’t interesting enough to keep going in Japanese rn. I’ll finish it in English at some point.

Picked up https://learnnatively.com/book/f72cfe7d39/ again. Definitely a breeze compared to Wicked, tho I’m not really sure I care about the main subplot for the remaining portion of the book. Also I appreciate that the character who was described as 面倒くさい was actually 面倒くさい, and that the MC has this explained to her, so she hopefully won’t just doormat in the future. I think it’s doing a decent job of keeping the traditional kyudou elements while also focusing on the social stuff.

So far 若草物語 | L39 are the only originally-English books I’ve finished in Japanese. With カーミラ | L30 being stopped halfway (good translation. If I wasn’t also reading it in English, I would have finished it), and 赤毛のアン | L32 being stopped in the first chapter (it was hard and I wasn’t in the mood for that, seems very worth finishing though).

Otherwise I’m the middle of various manga, but I’ll report on some after I’ve finished

[eefara]

@9Sora2

Do you guys binge read whole series?

I want to, but there are so many things pulling at my attention to “rEaD rIgHt NoW” that I inevitably end up getting sucked into something else. I actually decided to make it a theme this year for myself to focus more on series I’ve already started (it’s my Year of the Sequel!), which I’m pretty excited for.

---

On that note, it’s been a while since I’ve updated here! Mostly just because February’s been a slower reading month than anticipated; I was hoping to kinda zoom through my current book, but at my current pace I’ll be lucky to finish it by the end of the month… Anyway,

Been continuing to read NO.6 [ナンバーシックス] ♯3; it’s so good, y’all; I’m just telling myself it’s been a slower read than anticipated because I’m savoring it. I just hit the 50% mark last night; I have a small, secret goal to finish the book by the end of the month to start fresh in March, which is 100% doable if I prioritize it (I think). I’ll be visiting some friends this weekend, so that’ll either end up being “I read nothing because we were hanging out and chatting the whole day” or “I read far more than normal because we weren’t really doing anything and were hanging out and chatting all day”, if you know what I mean.

Let’s see, audiobook-wise, I’ve been alternating between ヴァンパイア探偵 --禁断の運命の血– and BUTTER. The former I, in theory, could have already finished (I’m at about 50% there as well), but I’ve had to take a step back from my daily listening this last week because I could feel the burnout creeping in. At this point I’m probably going to continue pausing the daily listening until at least March, though I do need to find time to slot in BUTTER for the book club…

Otherwise I’ve been reading along with 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった… 1 with the book club, and I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit more than anticipated (me having been anticipating it being too tropey to really draw me in). I’ve also been reading more Flesh&Blood short stories to prepare myself for starting FLESH & BLOOD 20 after finishing No. 6 #3.

(Hmm. Looking back at all those paragraphs of books, what could possibly be the reason I haven’t finished No. 6 yet? )

Oh! And I’ve been reading manga on the side as well. I’ve been working on 仁獣芳烈伝 with the goal of only having 4-5 volumes left by the time the spring WK readathon rolls around. Volumes 1-2 are technically re-reads (though I barely remember anything at this point), so they haven’t shown up in the update queue.

[9Sora2]

Reading 青ブタ vol 12

[Pashmina]

致死量の幸福 | L21

Wow this was a crazy ride.

A short story collection with a super cute artstyle, that gave us everything from toxic BL, bullying, supernatural GL, robots, and cute wholesome GL.

[暁のルナ]

You have my attention

[yukitanuki]

Oh! I’ve read this in コミックビーム! It has been a while but I immediately recognized it because it has been one of the most memorable things I’ve read in コミックビーム.

[読み蛙]

It’s been a while since I last posted, so have been reading a few things!

I read はるか | L27 - about a genious coder building an AI version of his former wife.

I feel like the author could have done a little more with the AI theme, but it was fun and a nice easier read while still being aimed at adults.

I also read 我が友、スミス | L34 - just as the blurb calls it - a 筋トレ小説.

Kinda interesting glimpse into the world of body building, with the books counting down from months to days to hours before a big body building competition.

I felt like I wanted a bit more dialogue or action, as whenever stuff was happening it was broken up often with the main characters inner thoughts/monologue.

(as an aside, I find the concept of 〇〇小説 kinda interesting, e.g. the お仕事小説. I’m sure there’s plenty of examples in non-Japanese books, but it does feel writing in detail about a particular niche works well in Japanese publishing.)

And next exciting update is I got a Bigme B6 which is my first e-reader!
I actually bought and returned a BOOX Palma a couple of weeks before, and chose the Bigme instead.

The Palma and the Bigme both needed a bit of manual tinkering and messing about to get stuff working OK (which frustrated me more on the Palma, since I felt like should be seamless given it’s at a more premium pricepoint).

This & feeling that the Bigme is actually a much nicer size (pretty much exactly a bunkobon size) - means I’m much happier with it.

Anyway, as a result of that, I got https://learnnatively.com/book/6f6e7eebe6/ and got a bit carried away and read the first two chapters ahead of the book club.

And now I’ve paused that, until the book club is underway, and started on 星くずの殺人 | L30?? , which I had assumed would be more silly (a la 赤川), but is actually just a murder mystery set in space (but has been good so far!).

[暁のルナ]

@読み蛙

(as an aside, I find the concept of 〇〇小説 kinda interesting, e.g. the お仕事小説. I’m sure there’s plenty of examples in non-Japanese books, but it does feel writing in detail about a particular niche works well in Japanese publishing.)

凜として弓を引く | L27 is an excellent 弓道小説 imo. My only complaint is the author’s writing of numbers… 三〇五一 style instead of 三千五十一 or 3051. I’m seemingly fine with that in nonfiction, but it keeps throwing me off in this series

[eefara]

@読み蛙

And now I’ve paused that, until the book club is underway, and started on 星くずの殺人 | L30?? , which I had assumed would be more silly (a la 赤川), but is actually just a murder mystery set in space (but has been good so far!).

Wishli- wait, it’s already on there.

[Mioneko]

I’ve got about a quarter of 本好きの下剋上 (第一巻) left and I’m absolutely loving it! It’s definitely the slowest I’ve taken reading a book in a while just due to mental health stuff, but nonetheless it’s been a pleasure to read. Looking forward to finishing it though, since I have several books on my TBR that I’m very excited about.

@earwen

Now I hope to finish 安達としまむら 2 | L31 before the end of the month

I love 安達としまむら! I’m on 第五巻 but have kind of left the book hanging for 本好き this past month, so this is reminding me to start on that book again lol. How has the series been treating you so far?

[earwen]

@Mioneko

I love 安達としまむら! I’m on 第五巻 but have kind of left the book hanging for 本好き this past month, so this is reminding me to start on that book again lol. How has the series been treating you so far?

I came from the anime which I already liked but I liked the novels more. The kind of worries and thought spirals the characters have even if sometimes nonsensical or absurd feel really relatable, like I don’t think I ever seen a novel write down internal monologue so realistically (or at least, similiar to me - idk what other people think like). This aspect though is what makes it deceptively hard for a (mostly) mundane slice of life.

[9Sora2]

Finished 青ブタ vol 12 yesterday and started reading vol 13 today.

Also reading one volume of a different series between vol 11 and 12 was a very good idea. I’m a lot more motivated to keep reading now

[cloverff]

And just in time for the end of February, I finished https://learnnatively.com/book/0fe1530c9c/ This was a rather chill continuation of the first book in the series, with more descriptions of cooking and crafting. I do kind of disagree with the review that there’s too much focus on friend drama and party prep, because the friend drama and party prep is the plot. Although I was kind of surprised when Hanabi and her bully have a girl-fight in the school bathroom. It felt so out of place with the tone of the rest of the book but also kind of welcome after two books of Hanabi getting bullied.

I liked the first book enough to read the second one, but the series doesn’t feel challenging anymore so I think I’d rather spend my time with some of the other kid’s chapter books. Perhaps I’ll return to the series if I ever need a low look-up read for on the plane or train.

[CatDQ]

Just finished reading 骨ドラゴンのマナ娘 volume 2 and I love the soft style drawing, especially the dragons in it.

A few baby Dragon image panels

The back cover also has a short manga under the dust cover on each of the volumes that seems to either expand on one of the panel sets inside, or it gives an alternative character interaction