For thoses looking for a special kind of reader:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=1050

(how do you make hyper links anyways??)

I found a pretty niftty book latley.

Its called Read real Japanese.
It has:
1. 6 short stories by Contemporary writers (after 2000 for the most part)
2. Furigana over the kanjii the FIRST time only it appears in the story
3. Japanese top to bottom, on right, english short sentence translation on left (not full, which is better).
4. A special dictionary in the back
5. Very very nice grammer notes for each sotry in the back!
A CD including EVERY story.

I like this much better than BREAKING INTO JAPANESE LIT.

Its 2600 yen, so its not really cheap, but I feel its worth it.

I have read two of the stories and they are both interesting, and challanging.

Check it out if you have the chance/desire-highly reccomended-Intermediate to advanced.

I have this book(the fiction edition, this seems to be the one you're talking about, based on the modernity of the writers, and the included CD.)

I second the recommendation. It's a great book! I enjoy the grammar notes, these are very handy.

Reading some reviews of the 'Essay' edition, I found that it used romaji for most of its grammar explanations. To any of you that are turned off by this: This is not the case in the 'Fiction' book. The only romaji used in this book are the romaji used to well, write English(they're still romaji, no? not being used for Japanese doesn't make them any less Roman Characters)

I read a review of these books yesterday actually. They sound pretty good, so I'll check them out at the weekend.

From what I can remember from the review, there are two books. One is a collection of short stories and the other is a collection of essays on Japan. You have to buy them seperately and they are 2600 yen each.

Each book gets progressively more difficult as you advance through the chapters and furigana is only used the first time a kanji appears.

Sounds good to me. Its nice to see something out there that's not completely basic and yet includes audio.

Looks good. How do they compare to say the Japanese Graded Readers series? Looks like these would closest match the level 4 in that series. I have neither but am thinking of getting one. Opinions?

I got both of the new editions through the post this week and first impressions are good. I think that in relation to the content the price is fair.

I've got both these and the japanese graded reader series (all three volumes in the first two grades). I can't do a fair comparison yet, but I suggest that those on a budget will get more value from the "Read Real Japanese" books. If you're not on a budget then I would recommend both series. I'm really enjoying the graded readers, but they do work out quite costly in relation to content.

@R_tyro: I can have a look at both series against one another at the weekend. Let you know how they compare in level.

Edit: Links...

http://www.thejapanshop.com/product.php?productid=17370
http://www.thejapanshop.com/product.php?productid=17371

Note: The sample pages show the Japanese text and the English translation. They don't show the really useful grammar notes section which offers guidance on the sentence constructions.

radical_tyro Wrote:Looks good. How do they compare to say the Japanese Graded Readers series? Looks like these would closest match the level 4 in that series. I have neither but am thinking of getting one. Opinions?

Well, I have level 3 and 4 of the graded readers as well.
They are really two different things I think.

The readers are much more for fun. they are desinged to be picked up and read for enjoyment (although you can study them, learn new words, sentence mine, etc). And they include little culture notes within the story if a very specific word pops up that they think a non japanese would not know.

The RRJ is a bit more academic. The dude who does the translation, dic, grammer notes etc has a PHD and is pretty sharp. The book seems to be a labor of love. And of course the stories are by real japanese writers written
for a Japanese audience.

Both are great really. In terms of difficulty, I think RRJ is harder than level 4 or the readers, since the writters tend to take some liberties with the Japanese language, just like any good writter should.

Thanks for all the reviews! I am leaving Japan next month so I am trying to decide which books I should buy before I leave. I am especially interested in the comparison between the graded reader series, the RRJ books and the BREAKING INTO... book. Please keep the reviews coming!

zazen666 Wrote:(how do you make hyper links anyways??)

Look at the Links and images tags on the BBcode page. Is that what you are looking for?

I can't speak for Read Real Japanese (yet), but I do have Breaking Into Japanese Literature. I found it rather dense and difficult to get into. There's a lot of non-standard kanji and some fairly uncommon words, so especially early on, my progress was painfully slow. I gave it up for more comprehensible reading, which I got more entertainment and more learning out of. By the time I was able to read it at any sort of enjoyable pace, I didn't really want the translation any more (although having all the compound readings readily available is still nice).