The series I'm reading now is 二十世紀少年【にじゅうせいきしょうねん】(20th Century Boys). It's a really interesting manga and has been a great source of new vocab and phrases for me. I only have the first three volumes but hopefully I'll finish them just as I arrive in Japan so can buy some more.

I have a lot of faith in comic books, as reading Simpsons comic books every night as a child was how I improved my English ability. Just take a look at those things, the words are tough! Yet it's entertaining enough not to put you to sleep.

Stay clear of the Japanese version of Harry Potter by the way, that book's awfully painful to read, but I can't say the English version was much different.

cameron_en, I agree with you about Harry Potter. I didn't enjoy the first few English books so I have ignored the Japanese translations. I've also read 20th Century Boys.

Regarding manga, I had been pretty much reading it exclusively for the past year and a half or so. And trust me, I read a ton of it. I just recently started reading real novels and I've noticed my reading comprehension and ability has really jumped to the next level. Maybe it's because manga is so dialog oriented, I don't know. Anyways, that's part of the reason I started the thread. The real reason is because my goal in learning Japanese was so I could eventually read Japanese novels. Can't believe it's happening.

Thanks everyone for the continued recommendations!

suffah Wrote:The real reason is because my goal in learning Japanese was so I could eventually read Japanese novels. Can't believe it's happening.

It's a great feeling, eh?

The one thing I can't imagine is reading a Japanese book without using a dictionary. Anyway, I'm reading "Read Real Japanese" right now and it's a good way to get started on reading novels. A bit less intimidating.

nac_est Wrote:

Ryuujin27 Wrote:Yep, those are them. They are called "light novels" in English, or in Japanese 小説(shousetsu).

Not exactly. I'm quite sure they are called ライトノベル in Japanese, often abbreviated to ラノベ. 小説 is a more generic term for novels.
Just pointing that out to avoid confusion

Oh really? Huh... I've always seen all of them referred to as 小説... I'll have to remember that often they are just called ライトノベル too. Thanks!

http://karasu.xrea.bz/soft_tobira.shtml

This is a recomendation for a software to read aozora bunko books. You may find other ebooks around in aozora format.

リング is looking very interesting to me. I ordered it off sasuga and I can't wait for it to get here.

It's the book the ring series was based off of. Samara, evil video tape, 7 days, etc. But from what I've heard this is more into the investigation and mystery. It looks really good.

The male character from the film (ex-husband of the film's heroine) is the main character of the book, isn't he?

I want to pick up Ring someday. I have a book of short stories, ゆがんだ闇, which has a story from the same author. Also one by 瀬名秀樹? the writer of Parasite Eve has a story in there. Those two were the reason I bought it (but ironically, I've not read through their stories yet despite having had the book for years).

I've been planning on picking up a copy of 陰陽師 the next time I hit up a Bookoff. I don't know what the difficulty level is though. There is also a manga adaptation (and the two films).

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/陰陽師_(小説)

cameron_en Wrote:Stay clear of the Japanese version of Harry Potter by the way, that book's awfully painful to read, but I can't say the English version was much different.

I was already a few years into university when the Harry Potter series came out (in NA anyways) so I never got caught up in the whole movement. I'm sure both the English and Japanese novels are full of made up words (and a ton of katakana eigo for the JP one), aside from all the problems inherent from trying to learn from a translated text.

Only read Harry Potter in Japanese if you really like Harry Potter, and try not to learn sentence patterns & word usage (translated text) or made up words from it.

alyks Wrote:Samara, evil video tape, 7 days, etc. But from what I've heard this is more into the investigation and mystery. It looks really good.

Sadako

Factual material is good to read. This book is in English and Japanese:

The History of England at a Glance
あらすじで読む
英国の歴史

by

James Vardaman Jnr./Aiko Watanabe

ISBN978-4-8061-2962-2 C2082