Breaking Into Japanese Literature

[Brody]

I posted this in part of another post but these are good books, so I thought I'd bring them up here too.

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 for anyone of any level. Unfortunately, it doesn't really teach anything, so if you don't know grammar yet, you won't learn it from here unless you can figure it out on your own. But it's a great companion book to practice what you've learned and to just get a feel for the language. I've used it at all levels, from when I could barely sound out the furiganga to now when I can read just the Japanese. I still go back to this when I have free time.

You can find it on amazon.