Is there such a thing as light novels that are maybe between 40 and 100 pages?
If so, what are your recommendations?

Also, are there any japanese websites that list of
a)the top light novels for a given week/month
2)new light novels just released (including a short description)

I'm looking to expand beyond just manga and light novels seem like a good
next step.


I'd like to get started in reading light novels, but 250 pages or over is a bit too much.
I would prefer to read shorter stories. A series of short light novels would be great, too.

Thanks.

*Checking page numbers of light novels I have...

Nah, nothing shorter than 200 pages =(

Despite it still being long (257 pages), I recommend 撲殺天使ドクロちゃん (ぼく・さつ・てん・し　ドクロちゃん) purely because of the awesome title.

You may like Kino no Tabi (キノの旅).
Each chapter is a short standalone story (~40 pages).

iSoron Wrote:You may like Kino no Tabi (キノの旅).
Each chapter is a short standalone story (~40 pages).

Does it have furigana? I love the anime, and I want to read the books, but... I'm not quite there yet.

There aren't any light novels that are as short as you say, but I have the book "Breaking into Japanese Literature" with the initial short stories at only about 8 pages long. Nice and digestable =)

Read Real Japanese also has 10-20 page stories as well. (Well, 5-10, since the other page is english/explanation/etc.)

chamcham Wrote:Is there such a thing as light novels that are maybe between 40 and 100 pages?
If so, what are your recommendations?

LOL, sort of, they are called short stories. I'm not sure if you can find 100 pages long though... but seriously, why don't you just buy yourself a book of Japanese short stories? Unfortunately I can't give any recommendations as I have no experience with this.

It's more like science fiction than light novels, but 星新一's stories are as easy as light novels and are very short, usually something like 10 pages per story. I read many of his books as a child and teenager, and highly recommend it.

masaman Wrote:It's more like science fiction than light novels, but 星新一's stories are as easy as light novels and are very short, usually something like 10 pages per story. I read many of his books as a child and teenager, and highly recommend it.

That's the kind of thing I've been looking for. Can you confirm that this is a compilation of his short stories? http://www.bk1.jp/product/03141221

If not, or if there's a better one, can you link to it?

Thanks!

There are loads of authors that write short stories. Most of the established ones have books that are a collection of short stories. So if you look on the bookshelf, you might think that the entire book is a long story, but actually there are a number of shorter ones in there.

I took a look at the book that Nii87 mentioned and took a note of the authors and looked for their books in the book shop. It was more difficult than I thought and I wrote a blog post about it:

http://wrightak.blogspot.com/2009/03/fig...ystem.html

In the post, I list the authors and their stories.

I've read a couple of them now. If you like stories with a darker twist that are a little bit scary, you might like stuff by 乙一 (おついち）. 神様 didn't make a huge impression to be honest. Maybe I was missing some kind of message.

I'm surprised noone has mentioned this yet. Fantajikan has a affiliate website (or something).

http://o-musbee.jp/fantajikan/all.html

All listed stories have mp3 audio with professional readers, and an exact script for you to follow along! It has kanji too! I think its pretty cool, unless I'm missing something here...

I also recommend "Breaking into Japanese Literature," it's got some great short stories that only tally up a few pages in original Japanese (but it has dual translation and a vocab index)

Check this out also:

http://works.bookstudio.com/

Short stories by amateurs.

wccrawford Wrote:

masaman Wrote:It's more like science fiction than light novels, but 星新一's stories are as easy as light novels and are very short, usually something like 10 pages per story. I read many of his books as a child and teenager, and highly recommend it.

That's the kind of thing I've been looking for. Can you confirm that this is a compilation of his short stories? http://www.bk1.jp/product/03141221

If not, or if there's a better one, can you link to it?

Thanks!

Cool, yes the link is his book. I remember reading 殿様の日 which is in this book, but I think it was in some other book so I'm not sure how this particular book is like. It seems all stories in the book are 時代小説, meaning the background of the stories is Edo era and before when Shoguns were ruling Japan.

Amazon has a bunch of his books too.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?_...EA&x=0&y=0

I remember reading

ボッコちゃん
ようこそ地球さん
妄想銀行
きまぐれロボット
おせっかいな神々
未来いそっぷ
ちぐはぐな部品
だれかさんの悪夢
ノックの音が

and I think they all are fairly famous ones with the backgrounds that are more modern.

what about 1000 characters?

http://www.1000moji.com/