(no subject)

If anybody asks me whether or not I can speak chinese, I'm gonna have to ask them if their definition of 'speak' is 'can discuss the differences between objective and subjective viewpoints at length' or 'knows how to say 'socks'.'

(hint: only the first one applies to me)

Book recs?

In about two weeks, I'm going to Japan for fiveish days. My mother has most of our travel stuff planned out, but my #1 plan is to buy a lot of books, haha. However, my knowledge of Japanese books is sadly lacking, so this is me asking for recommendations!

Favorite genres: anything with lots of ladies, literary fiction that isn't just pointless navel-gazing (see Invisible Cities, The Helmet of Horror, etc.), history, myths/folklore, adorable slice-of-life, queer stuff, fiction about domestic stuff and school, the kind of horror where you are 100% on the side of the monsters, and language/linguistics/literary nitpicking.

--In other words, rec me all your favorite Japanese books! And please pass this post around to your friends as well, I need all the suggestions I can get.

(Also: I was going to say 'but no manga', since I basically know what I want on that end, but then I remembered that there are lots of lovely josei manga that never get noticed by uploaders or translators -- I mean, we're damn lucky that someone picked up Gold Rush 21, and even that's probs because of the author's more conventional series -- so if you have any favorite josei one-shots/short series or authors, pass 'em along!)