Easy Japanese novel recommendations?

[tiroth]

I'm close to finishing 西の魔女が死んだ by 梨木香歩. I found it to be entertaining and a smooth read. Anyone have other suggestions for me? I also have 月の影 影の海 and ハリーポッター on the shelf, but these both seem a bit more challenging.

I've also read and enjoyed some short story compilations like きまぐれロボット from 星新一 and would recommend them to anyone starting out. I find reading novels to be a little more rewarding though.

[Bueller_007]

I'm close to finishing 西の魔女が死んだ by 梨木香歩. I found it to be entertaining and a smooth read. Anyone have other suggestions for me? I also have 月の影 影の海 and ハリーポッター on the shelf, but these both seem a bit more challenging.

I've also read and enjoyed some short story compilations like きまぐれロボット from 星新一 and would recommend them to anyone starting out. I find reading novels to be a little more rewarding though.

For those of us who don't know the books you're talking about, it might help if you give us some indication of your Japanese level in order to make a recommendation.

For advanced learners, they should just hit Aozora Bunko and get Japanese classics for free.
Anything by 芥川龍之介 (Akutagawa Ryunosuke) is sure to be a winner. 蜜柑 (Mikan) is a relatively easy intro to his stuff.

[Brody]

Try Harry Potter. I've looked at it and would say it's lower intermediate. If you're around that level, try some novels aimed at young teens/high schoolers.

I know of two great books that can give a good jump into Japanese literature for anyone.

The first is called: Breaking Into Japanese Literature by Giles Murray. It takes stories by Natusme Soseki and Akutagawa Ryunosuke, presents the original Japanese with furigana the top half of one page, an English translation on the next page, and vocabulary on the bottom. I found this to be an invaluable book to begin reading. (You can also download a track of someone reading it online to practice listening). I would whole-heartedly recommend this book.

The next is called Read Real Japanese by Janet Ashby. It takes essays by some modern Japanese writers and presents notes on them. It doesn't give you a word-by-word translation, but does give you thorough notes. While I would say this one might be kind of hard, it's a good challenge.

If you think you don't need any more help and want to completely dive in, go for something on the best-seller's rack; odds are most of those things won't be too dense if the Japanese public is anything like the American public.

Right now, I'm reading a book called いま、会いにゆきます　by　市川拓司　（Ichikawa Takuji). Don't tell any of my friends I'm reading it but it's a love story about a man who loses his wife and has to raise his young son on his own. However, before his wife died, she told him that when the rainy season came again next year, she would return to be with them. Now a year later, father and son go for a walk on the first day of the rainy season and find a woman in the forest who looks exactly like the wife/mother they lost. Naturally, she's lost her memory, so the man has to tell her the story of how they met and fell in love and they are all able to have a little more time together and find themselves.
I know. I know. It sounds like sappy love-crap. But my Japanese friend recommended the movie to me, which I, for some insane, non-masculine reason, absolutely adore, and then said I should read the book. The book is extremly easy to follow: I'm 150 pages in in about 2 months of casual reading while I've finished up school, and aside from needing to look up a ton of vocab, there've only been about five times I've really needed to stop and try to figure a sentence out. Plus, the book's different enough from the movie to keep things interesting.
Anyway, easy read, good movie, and the girls think you're a sensitive sweetheart if they catch you reading it (I'm planning to use it extensively when I get to Japan!)

Let us know how it goes.

[ssomers]

I was going to mention the Akutagawa and Soseki, but I do find them a bit daunting b/c of some of the antiquated grammar. I have, however, found some junior high school editions which are extremely well annotated, explaining some of the more difficult lexical points in easy Japanese.

I liked this edition:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4094 ... &s=gateway

Incidentally, IMO, the last two winners of the Akutagawa-prize I found to be 'easy' novels, largely because they're so full of Japangrish

[tiroth]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've read about half of "Breaking Into Japanese Literature". I like the stories, but it does seem like a good percentage of the vocabular/orthography is a bit archaic, so it raises the question of "should I bother to memorize this or not?" Definitely a nice resource though with the free audio.

I also have "Read Real Japanese" but have yet to start it. I will probably finish both readers in time, but I try to keep a bit of a wall between "reading for class/study" and "reading for fun". When I do the former I look up every word I don't know and enter it into Supermemo, with the latter I just try to free-read as much as possible. I think both styles have their own value.

Brody, your suggestion sounds like it might be good for me for that reason. I think I will actually read the 新潮文庫 edition of 奇跡の人 next, but I hope to burn through it fairly quickly and be on to something new.

[Brody]

Yeah I felt the same about the things we read in school because they were all from around the war and thus pretty outdated. I mean, most of it is useful but I wouldn't teach English using Emerson or Dickens.
Try いま会いにゆきます I'm willing to help you if you come across any questions with it. I'm gonna be in Japan soon and will definitely be looking for more books so I'll try to remember to let you know about them.