An Interview Kat in Japan | Reading Around the Globe

1. What is your name? WHAT??? YOU DIDN’T SAY I WAS GOING TO HAVE TO INTRODUCE MYSELF!!!! I didn’t have time to mentally prepare! Ahem. Okay, let’s start over. Hi, my name is Kat *waves awkwardly*
2. Blog URL? Novels and Waffles
3. Twitter handle? @novelswaffles
4. Where do you live? Japan – AKA The Land of the Rising Sun (Doesn’t that sound like the title of some YA Fantasy novel?) – but I was born in the United States.
5. Do you find that there is a culture of reading where you live? If not, tell us a bit how you came to be one! YES, there is a huge culture of reading in Japan! There are bookstores everywhere you go; you can even buy books at 7-11! There’s new books, old books, children’s books, magazines, newspapers, and comics. People read on the train, at home, in the park, and even while standing around in convenience stores. Here’s a fun fact for you: there’s an adult literacy rate of 99% in Japan, and just…wow. Isn’t that amazing?
6. What kinds of books do you enjoy reading? I am YA Fantasy trash all the way.
7. Have you always been a reader? Yes. Always. {Warning: I’m about to start monologuing now.} Books have been my best friends since the 4th Grade, when no one would sit with me during lunchtime. Don’t feel bad for me though (this isn’t some sob story), because it was then that I discovered something way more important than Elementary School popularity. What was that thing, you might ask? Well, I discovered that I wasn’t really alone. I was eating my ham sandwich with Harry Potter. I was drinking my Capri Sun alongside Lucy Pevensie. I had all the friends in the world, right there within the pages of my book.
8. Do you also read books published in your native language/published locally to you? If so, tell us a bit about what kinds of books are published in your country! My native language is English, but I can read, write, and speak Japanese well enough to get around. However, the Japanese written language is quite complex, with three completely different writing systems to master. The average person needs to know about two thousand kanji in order to read a newspaper. TWO. THOUSAND. I don’t know if I could memorize two thousand anythings, let alone two thousand characters from a foreign language. To top it off, each character can have a different reading when paired with another, leaving lots of confusion as to how a word should be pronounced. On occasion, I’ll try and read some manga in Japanese, though never without the extensive help of a dictionary. (I LOVE YOU JISHO.ORG!!!) If I were to try and tackle a whole novel in Japanese, I’m quite positive the sheer mental effort of it would make my brain explode. It would need to be labeled as one of the Twelve Labors of Hercules. And since I like my brain as it is (AKA: non-exploded), I don’t tackle Japanese novels very often, if at all.
9. Are there libraries where you live? If so, what kinds of books can you find there? Are you able to get the books that you want? There are libraries here in Japan, thank goodness! (My soul, as well as my bookstagram account, rejoices at this fact.) These libraries, depending on the city, can be quite large. The one nearest to my home is multi-leveled and sports a healthy amount of familiar translated – Go Set a Watchman, Percy Jackson, and The Night Circus to name just a few. The sad part (at least for me) is that these translated titles are way beyond my current Japanese reading level ability (see above). This fact pushes me to search for the “English Section” of each library or bookstore I visit, which is usually quite small, consisting mostly of English Language textbooks. And although some people might be riveted by the differences between interrogative pronouns and intensive pronouns, I’m not one of them. If I’m lucky, there might be a smattering of internationally famous titles, such as Harry Potter. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against rereading a title that I love (and Harry Potter definitely falls into that category – I’ve read it seventeen billion times, at least). But sometimes you just want a book that’s new and shiny. You want to experience the magic that is reading a book for the first time. Of meeting new characters and exploring new worlds. And it’s hard to do that without any new books to read.
10. How prevalent are English published books where you live in bookstores? (For example, books printed by HarperCollins.) Actual footage of me searching Japanese bookstores for English published books. But you know, although this fact makes my foreign self quite sad, I also feel like I can’t complain too much. English may be a widely studied language in Japan, but it isn’t quite so widely spoken (if that makes sense). I feel as if it would be selfish/elitist of me to grumble about a lack of books in my native language when I live in a largely non-English speaking country. But that’s just me. (if that makes sense). I feel as if it would be selfish/elitist of me to grumble about a lack of books in my native language when I live in a largely non-English speaking country. But that’s just me.
11. Do you use NetGalley or Edelweiss to request electronic galleys for review? If so, what kind of success rate would you estimate for you personally? I’ve thought about it, but everytime I open NetGalley/Edelweiss, I get too overwhelmed and end up closing the tab within five minutes. I’m a chicken and am comfortable with my chicken-ness.
12. Do you experience hurdles or barriers to access for the kinds of books that you read? Please explain if so. No.
13. If you could make one change to the publishing landscape, what would you do? That more books from other countries, such as Japan, would be translated into English and widely marketed. This way, the number of people who can enjoy foreign literature, as well as that country’s culture, would increase.
14. Help other international bloggers out… What resources do you use to obtain the books that you want to read? Honestly, I don’t think my advice will be of much help to anybody because I still use my American library card to check out all the ebooks I want to read. Sorry that I can’t be more helpful, guys! I’ve heard good things about Book Depository though.
15. Do you have any other experiences as a reader around the world that you would like to share? No.

Please note that all experiences reflected in the interviews are personal and are not meant to generalize what reading access is like in each country. If you are interested in participating please DM me on Twitter.