日本語の勉強

I've been trying to study Japanese daily to at least maintain (if not improve beyond) the skill level I had at the end of last semester, but it really is quite hard to keep up with, especially the kanji and reading practice, since it requires not only time but serious focus.  I often find myself too tired, busy, or distracted to do it properly, but I found something that really helps with this problem recently. I discovered these books by chance the other day, and find them extremely useful, better than many other similar sorts of books I've seen before.  They're called Read Real Japanese; one has essays and the other short fiction by famous contemporary Japanese authors, such as Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Kawakami Hiromi, and Ogawa Yoko.

Read Real Japanese Essays

What I like about these books is that they have the original works in the Japanese (which are pieces written for native Japanese speakers unlike the stuff in textbooks), and on the opposite page there's the text line by line with the English translation.  But it's not just a chunk of translated text, they break it down into pieces so you understand each part of the sentences and there's an even more detailed, grammatical explanation in the back of the book, as well as a dictionary.  They also come with a cd that has Japanese actors reading the texts aloud. 
I'd recommend these books to anyone studying Japanese at the intermediate-to-advanced level who wants to make the jump to reading real literature but doesn't have the skill to dive into the real thing just yet.  In any case they're great reading/listening practice material if you want something more interesting and natural than the passages in textbooks. : )