I don't know if you ever heard about this contest. It's a unique opportunity to improve your L2 challenging other a*atters.
This is going to be the 3rd edition and every time we get more numerous, we have more fun and we end up reading far more than we would have expected
How stated in the subject this is a reading contest...but nobody ever said you have to read only books. The sources you can use comprise videogames, subs, web pages,lyrics, comments from nico nico and manga. Obviously, page from books =/ page from manga and so on.
The contest is held on twitter and if you bother reading the trash talk （you can find it at #tadoku) you may find something interesting. Actually, this is my favourite way to get new material.
Here you can find the rules of the contest (be sure to read also the recent updates as something changed).

I do not run the contest, I've just posted here to let you know about it...and to recruit new opponents

Nice web page design.

Read more or die!

This kicks off again tomorrow, was great motivation last time and will be even more motivating now I have a score to beat

Anyone else joining in??

Can't you simply.. cheat in that contest?? :D

Why would you? Isn't the point of entering to motivate you to read lots and improve your language ability?

Yup, and the scoring is not really accurate, but despite that it definitely is good motivation trying to climb the ladder! Plus on your second run you're competing against yourself, so as long as you read similar material it's a fair fight

As a means of study I found reporting daily results to be really helpful. Also focusing on just the one task removes all the time taken to decide what to do.

This time I'll try my best with this new Mandarin thing I have started few months ago

Good luck with the Mandarin!

Do you have any recommendations for Japanese?

cool! i was planning to do an october challenge to read some news or editorial thing every day, so i may as well register for this while i'm at it. Great!

what's everyone's usernames? Mine's 1ceCreammm. i've registered now, and added what i've done so far today... if everyone writes their usernames i'll keep up to date on how you're all doing

@caivano
If you can read Japanese novels I'd suggest:
赤い指　東野圭吾
悪人　吉田 修一
告白　湊かなえ
And every 乙一's book you can find !
If you want to try a very peculiar light novel, try this one: 犬とハサミは使いよう. I loved it because there was almost no sex situations involved (contrary to the typical light novel), the author played with words A LOT and I laughed not just for the plot itself, but also for the narration style.

The more I read in Japanese the more I find myself loving 探偵小説; consequently, if you don't like this genre of book, you should ignore this post XD

Edite: Here I am, Little_strokes

Thanks! I picked up さみしさの周波数 by 乙一. I already had 告白 which I tried to read a year ago but found difficult. Also got a book by 森絵都 who was recommend in another thread.

Should keep me going for a while, but will revisit the other recommendations later

Shakunatz Wrote:@caivano
If you can read Japanese novels I'd suggest:
赤い指　東野圭吾

東野圭吾 is awesome. On the easier end of novels as a large portion of his books are conversations between people as opposed to intensely literary descriptions, etc. and the stories tend to be engaging and exciting.

I would also suggest,
容疑者Xの献身
麒麟の翼
流星の絆
as books by him that I quite enjoyed.

Also 村上春樹 - there's a pretty intense split between people who love and hate him, though, so that might be a place to be careful.
His newest, 1Q84, was quite good (for someone who likes his books..). It's tricky, I know. D:

I decided to join in. Well, I'm mostly just reading kids' books around middle elementary school level, but that's all I can do now without going into super-slow decryption mode which would defeat the purpose of a tadoku challenge. I'm hoping that a month of plowing through as many of these as I can will kick my level up a bit and I can start going for more difficult material. One of the books I'm reading is 窓ぎわのトットちゃん and although I like it, it still tires me quickly.

yeah, it's kinda nice to have an excuse to just read and not pick through with a dictionary, right?

容疑者Xの献身？ As in, the one that was made into one of the Galileo drama films then? And 流星の絆 as in also the same as the drama? Did he write the whole galileo series then?

Anyway, sounds good! i'm in the mood for something detectivey today, so i might give them a shot, thanks!!

I love this contest
For those looking for an easy read I'd like to suggest 若草色のポシェット, first book in the 杉原爽香シリーズ.
It was recommended quite some time ago in a thread somewhere on this forum, and it was also one of the first books I read in Japanese. Imho it's a great book to go from reading manga to easy novels, I didn't have much in terms of vocab and grammar under my belt when I started reading it (I was done with the core6000 decks and not much more) and it didn't feel too hard, I remember reading 1-2 chapters in a day without much effort. Of course there was some stuff that I didn't understand, but it was possible to follow the story, laugh at the jokes, etc.

I also really liked 告白, though it's quite a bit harder than 若草色のポシェット and I wouldn't suggest it as a first book.

My handle is Seizar86, I won't be logging my Japanese pages this month because I'd like to prioritize my Korean, but it will still be nice to see how everyone is doing

IceCream Wrote:what's everyone's usernames? Mine's 1ceCreammm. i've registered now, and added what i've done so far today... if everyone writes their usernames i'll keep up to date on how you're all doing

ta132 is mine. I wanted to join for the past ones but there was problems with the bot, but the author fixed them this time around and now I'm in. So far so good!

Mine's the same as my username here.
This should be fun. ^^

drdunlap Wrote:

Shakunatz Wrote:@caivano
If you can read Japanese novels I'd suggest:
赤い指　東野圭吾

東野圭吾 is awesome. On the easier end of novels as a large portion of his books are conversations between people as opposed to intensely literary descriptions, etc. and the stories tend to be engaging and exciting.

I would also suggest,
容疑者Xの献身
麒麟の翼
流星の絆
as books by him that I quite enjoyed.

Also 村上春樹 - there's a pretty intense split between people who love and hate him, though, so that might be a place to be careful.
His newest, 1Q84, was quite good (for someone who likes his books..). It's tricky, I know. D:

Cool thanks for the extra suggestions I have a book of short stories by 村上 which I really like, his writing style in that seems pretty easy... but the topics are all really everyday topics.

i really recommend 伊坂幸太郎 死神の精度!! i started reading it yesterday, and i'm really enjoying it!!!

It's not as easy as 東野圭吾 for sure, but it's not too difficult either... certainly not as much new (obscureish) vocabulary as キノの旅, and it's very readable, captivating, and entertaining. (it's not a detective novel though)

I was planning on taking on a novel for this but have got completely sidetracked by Manga. Mostly due to my local Tsutaya renting it for pretty cheap.

So far have been reading BAKUMAN, コナン, BECK and ７人のシェイクスピア. Have 10 more to get though by next week, then maybe after that I'll start a novel. Manga is a bit random with regards to page count tho. I guess Bakuman has about 5 times as much text per page as Beck.

It's nearly 多読 time again!!! I'm really looking forward to it

What's everyone's plans for reading material?

This time, i'd really like to finish　世界の終わりとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド and read Mishima's 金閣寺. i really wanted to read 伊坂幸太郎　ゴールデン・スランバー as well, but apparently it was sold out of everywhere in London for christmas so i didn't get it as a present Maybe i'll find something else when i go though...

That is an interesting contest. I am still really slow at reading, but i think I'll join in.

Right now I am reading ZOO by 乙一 which I should finish soon. Good to see that others like him as well :-)
And after that I want to read the 化物語 novel, hopefully that is doable in one month.

IceCream Wrote:It's nearly 多読 time again!!! I'm really looking forward to it

What's everyone's plans for reading material?

This time, i'd really like to finish　世界の終わりとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド and read Mishima's 金閣寺. i really wanted to read 伊坂幸太郎　ゴールデン・スランバー as well, but apparently it was sold out of everywhere in London for christmas so i didn't get it as a present Maybe i'll find something else when i go though...

I will probably not aim for #1 this time around. Just read slowly and see how much I can get in with one month of reading

Mishima likes to use obscure vocabulary. I started reading 金閣寺 and then gave up. I just wasn't having fun anymore.

I also didn't go too far with 世界の終わりとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド. I thought the story was quite weird. That city with herd of roaming animals? I might pick it up again one day, but it's just a huge book.