Adam’s Japanese Book Recommendations – Part 3
1. ゴブンノイチ (One Fifth)
Japanese Level: ☆☆
Kidnap a kidnapped baby and get 1 million dollars. Tsutomu, with 2 broken arms in the hospital, somehow gets involved in the strangest series of crimes.
2. 女王ゲーム (The Queen’s Game)
Japanese Level: ☆☆☆
The ultimate game of old maid. Winner: 10 million dollars. Loser: death. Cheating: allowed.
3. 雨の日も、晴れ男 (Rainy Day, Sunny Attitude)
Japanese Level: ☆☆☆
2 young gods take turns seeing how much they can mess up the life of one man in a day. But he is unphased and through his actions teaches valuable life-lessons.
4. この世でいちばん大事な 「カネ 」の話 (A Conversation About The Most Important “Money” In This World)
Japanese Level: ☆☆
The story of a girl growing up horribly poor, learning how to cope with money and the freedom it buys, and taking her dream to become a manga artist despite being terrible at drawing. Heart wrenching at times, but powerfully motivating on not giving up on your dreams no matter how hard things get and always working your way towards achieving what you truly want. I realized this halfway through reading it, but the J-drama 崖っぷちのエリー is based off of this book (though it doesn’t do it the justice it deserves).
5. たった1日で声まで良くなる話し方の教科書 (A Speaking Textbook That In Just 1 Day Will Even Improve Your Voice)
Japanese Level: ☆☆☆☆
Uozumi Rie, famous female news announcer, gives a lifetime of advice on how to become a better speaker and improve your voice. Some of these tips are language neutral, but a lot of it also goes to directly making your Japanese pronunciation, enunciation, and intonation sound better. She shares many personal stories, and makes you want to reinvent yourself.
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
I’m really looking forward to eventually getting to read all these novels! I’m 500 cards into intermediate, was thinking of starting to grab a few after I finish advanced. Do you think that would be a good starting point for novel reading?
Yeah, after advanced is fine (some people even start after intermediate). Start with lower star novels and work your way up.