ゆきの物語 VS Other Japanese Literature.

[Spitted]

始めまして。エヤルと申します。

I was interested in buying "Breaking into Japanese Literature / Murray" and "Reading Japanese with a Smile / Gally", when I came across ゆきの物語.
I read ゆきの物語's first two chapters and found it quite challenging. I wonder whether "Breaking into" and "Japanese with a Smile" are more difficult or approx. the same level?

The thing is, my grammar is decent but I have a poor vocabulary, so in order to read ゆきの物語 I'm using a dictionary from time to time. I'm afraid that if ゆきの物語 is hard for me, the other books would be nearly impossible.

Does anybody know how difficult those books are compared to ゆきの物語? Can you recommend another book that will suit me better?

Thank you.

[richvh]

I would say that "Breaking Into Japanese Literature" is more difficult than the first few chapters of ゆきの物語. I haven't see "Reading Japanese with a Smile" so I can't comment on that.

[spin13]

All of the stories in Breaking Into Japanese Literature are past copyright and available for free online. You can find audio recordings of them here. Free translations are likely available as well (you can find Akutagawa's In The Grove here, for example). Breaking Into Japanese Literature has parallel text and a glossary, which might be worth the price of admission, but you can sample the work before you even get that far.

As far as content, I haven't read any of Akutagawa, but Natsume's 夢十夜 is great.

Other free reading material, also with sound files, is available at Japanese Classical Literature At Bedtime.

-Eric

[clay]

We also have a few (free) short stories with audio here:
http://thejapanesepage.com/audio_files

The The Cut-Tongue Sparrow, The Inch-High Samurai, and The Tortoise and the Hare should be a little easier than the beginning part of Yuki, I think.