In this post, I am talking about some highlights of February and the books I am currently reading.
Interview with Koipun
The highlight of these past days is without a doubt my interview with Gabriel from Koipun. If you don’t know Koipun, it is a site dedicated to learning Japanese, it provides reading guides for manga and games (upcoming) and Anki decks for the textbook Genki.
I participated in the interview series on learning Japanese. I wrote more about me and how I have learned Japanese during this interview than I have ever done on my blog! If you are interested in knowing more about how I started reading in Japanese, you can have a look at my interview with Koipun!
My first novel in Korean!
The second recent highlight is that I have finished my very first novel in Korean by a Korean author. I have learned Korean, but my reading level is much lower than my Japanese reading level. I have read 2 or 3 translations into Korean of American best-sellers, but I have never been able to read a Korean author before.
The book I have read is a detective novel by Jayeong YUN (윤자영) called <교동회관 밀실 살인사건>. I loved it and I wrote a review about it. I am currently working on a new blog for Korean books!
I have finished 『誰か』by Miyuki MIYABE (宮部みゆき)!
Third highlight: I have finished the novel『誰か』! I started it in December 2018 so it took me 2 months to read! I liked it, but I didn’t find it very engrossing and I took long breaks between the chapters. The review is still on the making!
Currently reading
As usual, this is an overview of the books that I am currently reading in Japanese:
Harry Potter
I am still reading Harry Potter and The Chambers of Secrets in Japanese. It was published in two volumes in Japanese and I have finished the first one. While it does not mean anything (because it is still the same book), it is somehow rewarding to reach the end of a volume!
『スマホを落としただけなのに』by Akira SHIGA (志駕晃 )
This book is, I think, a best-seller since there has been a film adaptation by Hideo NAKATA. I purchased the audiobook some months ago, and I have listened to it twice since then. I am very pleased with it because I can understand it well.
I have decided to also buy the book and read it while listening to the audiobook. It is a good exercise to improve both my reading and listening level. There are a lot of things that I did not understand when I listened to the audio but that I understand while reading.
As I already know the story, I am not reading the book every day so it will certainly take a while before I finish it. I will write a review of both the book and the audiobook when I finish it.
『向田理髪店』by Hideo OKUDA (奥田英朗)
This is another book that I am reading slowly because each chapter focuses on a different story and I tend to take a break when I finish a chapter. I have read three of the six stories.
『誓約』by Gaku YAKUMARU (薬丸岳)
This is my most recent acquisition! I have never read Gaku YAKUMARU before, and I have chosen this book because the summary was very appealing to me. It is about a buried past that comes back to haunt the narrator’s present life.
I have just started it, but this book looks engrossing and easy to read so maybe I will finish it before all the others!
About
I’m learning Japanese, Korean and Chinese to read detective novels in these languages. I post about my reading progress and language study here. Best way to get in touch is on Mastodon 🙂
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