June has not been a good month to me, I haven’t read much, and I fell in a bit of a blogging slump as well. I also broke my 2021 reading challenge for the first time by not completing my Kogoro Akechi book for the month 😅
To illustrate June, a cat resting under a bench near the Seoul City Wall.
Currently reading
Reading challenge
『黄金仮面』 by Edogawa Rampo (江戸川乱歩)
My reading challenge is to read the12 books of the Kogoro Akechi series by Edogawa Rampo this year. I was supposed to read one book a month, and I was doing well until now. The book I was supposed to read this month is 『黄金仮面』 , and it is only 307 pages long.
I started this book on June 7th, and I still haven’t finished it today. There are two reasons for this. First, I did not like the beginning at all, and I had a hard time getting into the story. Even when things started getting more interesting, I did not find this novel engaging enough to make me want to catch up and complete my challenge on time.
The second reason is that I read a very engrossing but very long novel at the same time: 『空飛ぶタイヤ』 by Jun Ikeido. During the time I spent reading this book, I barely touched the Akechi one. After that, it was hard to pick up the book again.
I reached the point where I should have read 50 pages a day to complete my challenge, which could have been be doable if I had liked the book more. As it is, I can only read 5 pages or so before getting tired of it.
I will try to finish it and read the next novel in July to catch up with my challenge. I feel like it will not be easy, but I’ll try!
Non fiction book about Japan, Korea and China
『最新データで分かる 日本人・韓国人・中国人』 edited by 造事務所.
When I bought this book, I was not so much interested in knowing more about these three countries as in seeing how this Japanese book would talk about it.
The book stays very superficial on each topic, it is made to be easy and agreeable to read, not to give you a thorough view of the current state of each country. I personally enjoy reading it because I am always eager to see what Japanese media say about South Korea. It is also easy to read and cut in short chapters (one double page each).
Books I finished
Best book of the year so far… 『空飛ぶタイヤ』!
『空飛ぶタイヤ』 by Jun Ikeido (池井戸潤)
This is the second Ikeido book I read and it looks like all the books by this author are page-turners. Even if you are not an avid reader of business/corporate novels, I really encourage you to give this one a try. It is suspenseful and exciting, it only took me 8 days to read because I could not put it down.
As for the Japanese level, I found it easier to read than 『アキラとあきら』, which had a lot of bank-related things in it. 『空飛ぶタイヤ』 is not difficult overall. I would say that N2 is a good place to be to read this book comfortably. The writing is easy overall, but it is a long book with some difficult vocabulary here and there.
Started a new series… but not excited.
『プレゼント』 by Nanami Wakatake (若竹七海)
『プレゼント』 is the first book in the Akira Hamura series, a detective series that I wanted to start this year. I did not really like it, and it took me a while to read. It is a collection of short stories, so even though I was able to complete one story in one sitting, I always waited a long time before starting a new one. It only took me 7 days to read, but over a period of 41 days… so yes, I really was not motivated by this one.
Beautiful illustrated book that makes you want to travel
『かなしきデブ猫ちゃん』written by Kazumasa Hayami (早見和真), illustrated by Karin Kano (かのうかりん)
『かなしきデブ猫ちゃん』 is the story of a cat who travels all around Ehime prefecture. It reads both like an adventure book for children and a love song to Ehime prefecture… and it sure makes you want to travel.
It is relatively easy to read, the entire text has furigana and the illustrations do help to understand the story as well.
You can learn more about the book on the official website.
Plans for July
Thankfully, the Jun Ikeido has been here to save the month, because none of the other books I read has been particularly exciting. My main plan for July is to update my blog more often, I have several book reviews that need to be posted. Catching up with the Akechi series will also be my priority, so I might not read much else in July overall.
- Finish the 6th Akechi and read the 7th.
- Catching up with my book reviews.
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 🙂
I hope you have a better month in July!
We all have difficult months from time to time. I had a pretty bad one recently myself.
For a break, you might like to take a look at my newsletter.
Adam
Thank you! I will! 🙂
thanks for blogging! i got interested in edogawa ranpo after i saw the conan movies- 1, 3, 5, 6 specifically.
Thank you, I have been in a complete slump this Summer (haven’t opened wordpress for two months….), but I’m back now!
I should watch the Conan movies as well, I haven’t watched a single one yet!
i only watched them ( in japanese) so i could learn mandarin from them since there’s subs that match the mandarin dub for a bunch of the movies and there’s subs2srs and all that. I ended up having a lotta fun watching it. same thing with fight club and fast and furious movies (watched them in english.!) lol. mandarin dubs > chinese dramas for sure. usually chinese subs that match the chinese dub don’t exist but some movies have subs that match the dub.
That sounds great! I’m always tempted to learn Chinese as well because it looks like it would not be a lot of work thanks to the kanji. I did learn some Chinese in Highschool though and I found the pronunciation to be impossible to grasp, so it might not be for me after all!
That’s very cool. I only had the option of French and Spanish in my school. I took both but I wanted the option of a language that’s more distanced from English.
I found the pronunciation for mandarin to be impossible too since there’s all these sounds that sound the same. However it’s gotten much better from getting listening hours in via condensed audio of anime dubbed in mandarin. I can hear it so much better now. I wonder if you’d benefit from subs2srs decks for Japanese . There’s literally hundreds to download for anime subs2srs decks after a google search.
I’ve never used subs2srs but I’ve heard a lot of people talk about it. I’ll have to look into it, it sounds interesting, especially if I can download decks that are already made.
I am not using Anki at all at the moment and I am stagnating in terms of vocabulary.