New here to the forum. First post!
I’m currently reading medium 霊媒探偵城塚翡翠. I started it yesterday and I’ve been struggling to put it down since! I managed to pull myself away to do some work today but will definitely be delving back in later on.
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Ooh I saw a very positive review of it on Ho-Ling’s blog! I have been curious ever since 
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Manga wise reading 鬼さんこちら！
Novel wise reading 図書室の怪談
technically have more since I have a tendency to jump between things according to my mood but those are my main focus and I truly recommend them 
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“For better” was definitely ロジカとラッカセイ 1巻 | L23 for me. I expected it to be just goofy surreal fun and little more, and instead I got something a lot more special with memorable and emotional moments. Took me completely by surprise.
(Still trying to find the best way for a review without spoiling the experience too much. I keep rewriting it.)
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Today, I read ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖 (5) ~栞子さんと繋がりの時~ | L31. As in, I read the whole book, start to finish, in one day! I mentioned a few weeks ago I wanted to attempt this just so I can say I’ve done it, and I’m happy to report that I succeeded. It’s a good thing I set aside a whole day for it, because it took me that long to finish. I enjoyed this volume a lot, and even though a few of my personal theories for the ending didn’t pan out, the conclusion we got was still satisfying. And of course, the main duo finally officially agreeing that they’re dating was great to see.
Since my last update I also finished サイレント・ウィッチ II 沈黙の魔女の隠しごと | L29. It’s been so long since I read the first one that I was worried I might have forgotten who a few of the characters were, but thankfully this book describes every character and reminds you of any relevant relationships they have whenever you need to know. It definitely has that “Light Novel” feeling that people were discussing here recently. Nothing in this volume was particularly surprising or impactful, but it was always fun. Cat still best character.
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I just finished reading 裏世界ピクニック8 共犯者の終り | L32 and it was kinda weird.
Instead of involving some Eldritch horrors from the other side, it completely focused on the relationship between the two main characters and the fact that 空魚 is basically asexual (as far as we know) so having an actual relationship with 鳥子 is bound to be difficult… The book starts with 鳥子 asking for a clear answer, and the whole thing is about 空魚 trying to figure things out.
Except it’s all for moot because, at the end of the day, she ends up naked with 鳥子 and she finds out that she isn’t asexual, actually. That felt a bit strange as a way to resolve the plot… I expected at least that she would find out that she has some trauma preventing her from doing anything physical but… no. It just happens.
Follows a long-ish sex scene (which is also fairly strange for this series) with at least the interesting fact that they lose control of their respective powers during the act, which leads to weird (but harmless) consequences. I really wonder what the neighbors heard during that time…
That’s basically my impression for the whole series so far. And that’s pretty much all I need from a light novel 
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Wow, congratulations! That’s really awesome, and a great milestone; makes me want to go through my bookshelf and see if I have any good candidates to try something similar. Did you pick that book in particular, or did it just line up with your schedule?
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Thanks! It was a lot of fun, I’d recommend it if you can make the time.
I picked this series because I’m familiar with it, and I knew I’d be able to keep a consistent pace. This particular book was also on the shorter side compared to other entries so I thought it was a good candidate! That said, it was still 300 pages, and if I hadn’t finished it my next attempt was going to be something shorter like 推し、燃ゆ | L37.
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Shorter doesn’t necessarily mean faster, though. I read on average probably 10k characters per hour ( 
) but on an easy book this can go up to 15k and on a difficult book down to 5k.
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Yeah, you’re definitely right. That’s why my first choice was something I was familiar with. But at literally half the page count, and lower text density per page, surely it wouldn’t be that bad, right? (internal monologue spoken moments before disaster)
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A short 赤川次郎 book would be an easy candidate I imagine? パパの愛した悪女 | L26 or something similar (that one is long-ish but very easy).
I read https://learnnatively.com/book/13f4cb524e/ in a day (162 pages) - did you read that with the club on WK? Dark comedy about office politics, basically. I also recently read a book called ホテル・ピーベリー in a day (need to add to Natively still) and it was very easy but also…not very good. Being trapped on a 8+ hr flight does wonders for reading stats though
For me reading something in a day is a mix of ease of the text, length of the text, and how much time I have on hand.
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Ah, thank you for the suggestions!
You know, I’ve seen 赤川次郎’s name thrown around here quite often; it would be good to try one of his books at some point to see what he’s like. What kind of genres does he normally write?
No, I didn’t! I did see the book club and read a few of the impressions, though; they seemed overall positive, so I’ll have to add it to the Someday list. I’ll admit I don’t have much experience reading books focused around slow-moving train wrecks, so I’m curious how I’ll feel about it, haha.
That’ll be me in early April, haha, so I guess I know when I need to pick my book by if I decide to try then, haha.
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Trash. Please see the Bingo Card I made for him.
That’s fair. I think those of us that loved it have worked in offices and had similar experiences to the book so it really resonated. I’m not sure it’d really hit home for anyone who that is not the case.
Happy travels 
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Hahaha. Next book club: the 赤川次郎 bingo book club.
I used to be in an office pre-covid, though it was always a pretty chill place, so now I’m even more curious, haha.
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I am glad you enjoyed it so much, but I don’t think the “worked in offices and had similar experiences” is true. I have worked in different offices in different positions (and the pettiness etc. is a pretty good depiction) but the book did absolutely nothing for me. There was not enough drama or spice. None of it was funny. None of the characters were intriguing or likeable. For me, there was just really nothing interesting about this book and I usually really like slice of life, character driven stories.
But will be interesting to see where eefara falls. I seem to have a minority opinion. 
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Meanwhile, I never worked in an office (academia all the way) but I really enjoyed the book, so that’s at least two exceptions to that rule 
That, I will agree with, but, for me, that worked very well with the story rather than being a detriment.
Now @eefara has to read the book sooner than Someday™ and give us their opinion 
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Huh, I had assumed that because in the book club thread (@Naphthalene read outside of the thread and actually prompted the creation of the club!) those of us who loved it were all relating it back to similar experiences we’d had. I’d not call the book slice of life though, to me that genre is usually more…cheery? And with likeable characters. You’re supposed to dislike everyone in this book and just eating popcorn watching the train wreck, so to speak.
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Ack, the pressure’s on! 
Also, an anime addition of 薬屋のひとりごと’s been announced! It’s like the universe is telling me to get a move on. 
Ugh, why are there so many books to read?
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Huh. I never thought about that. I thought slice of life is just when people are doing regular everyday people things (in contrast to, say, going on a quest to defeat 魔王 or something).
That’s how I enjoyed it, at least, haha.
Oof, spoiler warning that the trailer spoils (in case you saw the video already, don’t look at the following, otherwise, it’s fine) the end of volume 2..
That’s not the right question. Having many books is a good thing. The question is “why is there so little time?”
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