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+--- Thread: Beautiful Japanese Books (/thread-10602.html)
Beautiful Japanese Books - comeauch - 2013-03-09
Do you know of any publishing company offering especially beautiful hard covers? I'm thinking something similar to the Folio Society books...
I wouldn't mind the price considering how long I'm probably going to spend on them
Thanks!
Beautiful Japanese Books - comeauch - 2013-05-18
Let me bump this with another (more general) question:
Do you know any "literature" series? I'm thinking of something like Penguin Books or Insel Bücherei?
Beautiful Japanese Books - yudantaiteki - 2013-05-18
What kind of literature are you looking for? The only series are typically the bunko volumes published by Iwanami, Shincho, Kodansha, etc.
Beautiful Japanese Books - uisukii - 2013-05-18
From this site: http://www.publishersglobal.com/ I found two publishers that might be of some insight. Below are the direct website links and the descriptions from the prior link.
http://www.j-lit.or.jp/
Quote:J-Lit Center runs the Japanese Literature Publishing Project (JLPP), which promotes contemporary Japanese literature abroad and offers financially-aided translations into English, French, German and Russian for selected titles.http://www.bunshun.co.jp/
Quote:Bungeishunju Ltd. has been playing a leading role in the Japanese literary world and journalism.It would be incredible if there were a Japanese publisher akin to Penguin Books, but I've yet to find anything as such.
Beautiful Japanese Books - yudantaiteki - 2013-05-18
I think the various literature bunko publishers are similar to Penguin in that they have critically edited texts with introductions written by scholars and annotations.
Beautiful Japanese Books - Tzadeck - 2013-05-18
Have you read many books in Japanese before? I find it useful to make notes in the books, and I feel like buying a really nice copy of a book would discourage me from doing that. I usually buy regular hard covers, as soft covers in Japan are often really small and don't have any room for making little notes and the like.
Beautiful Japanese Books - uisukii - 2013-05-19
yudantaiteki Wrote:I think the various literature bunko publishers are similar to Penguin in that they have critically edited texts with introductions written by scholars and annotations.Are you aware of any said publishers that sell softcover/paperback editions for roughly a similar price, or around １０００円 (not including any shipping, if available online)? A further question, if you don't mind: that you are aware of, are books in Japan expensive to buy new? Would Amazon.com be a good example (without shipping costs) of a reasonable price for new books out of Japan?
Beautiful Japanese Books - yudantaiteki - 2013-05-19
That's exactly what bunko are, softcover editions for about that price (less usually). The amazon.com prices are normal and reasonable, not counting the shipping costs.
Beautiful Japanese Books - comeauch - 2013-05-19
I did manage to find some series!
This one is classical literature, something I probably won't get myself into for a couple of decades hahaha. At least they have been rewritten in "contemporary" Japanese, but yeah. Too bad because the designs are nice for every single volume!
This looks much more promising for a literature series. But they are not really as beautiful... At least they are cheap (@uisukii! Also, I tried tenso for shipping items bought on bookoff.co.jp but it would work on Amazon.co.jp as well. It's still expensive, but then again, there aren't many ways of shipping).
There were also a couple of sets/collections about literature written by women which I didn't bookmark! Not that..., but... gender equality..., so...
I know I'm literally judging books by their covers, but I originally made this thread after browsing through the Folio Society website thinking: "It's crazy expensive, but I'd buy some if they were in Japanese".
Beautiful Japanese Books - uisukii - 2013-05-19
yudantaiteki Wrote:That's exactly what bunko are, softcover editions for about that price (less usually). The amazon.com prices are normal and reasonable, not counting the shipping costs.Ah, thank you. I wasn't aware of that. This is very good news.