Going over all my read Japanese books to add to the new DB, I realise that a good chunk of them are books I didn’t really want to read… I mean, they were not exactly books I didn’t want to read, but rather books I read for other reasons: some were because I was looking for easy books to recommend to Japanese learners… At the time when my blog was still insidethatjapanesebook, some people were asking for recommendations on my blog or Twitter (X), so I felt like I needed to do this kind of content. It was a good experience, I learnt a log of things in the process, and I’ve always loved recommending books to others, so I don’t regret reading these, even though some were very far from what I personally enjoy reading.
What I absolutely regret though are the books I read because everyone was talking about them, or because I thought that, as someone who reviewed Japanese books, I ought to have read. There are so many books that fall in this category, and no surprise, I rarely ended up liking them. But it’s hard to not get influenced, especially because at the time, I was on Twitter. Like when a book got translated into English everyone was talking about it, praising it like it was the best thing ever published, but me, I don’t think these books are anything special, they’re good yes, but good books are everywhere, so I might as well read the ones I want to read rather than the ones that are the current trendy thing.
So now I’m making a promise to myself: life is too short, books are too many, I’ll only read the books I want to read, not the ones that are hyped, not the ones it would be nice to have read, not the ones you read to look smart, educated and trendy, just the ones that trigger that spark of excitement when you see them or hear about them for the first time.
