My barrier to learning languages, and programming, is that I am very forgetful. So, it is difficult to build vocabulary and learn formally. I will likely do better with conversational partners, though I have not tried that yet.
PS - Speaking of simple one-liners, it is funny when the subtitle translations seem to be more complex/sophisticated than what the actual content really is.
Yes I have the memory problem also. Iām in my mid-to-late-30s so this is probably my last grasp of being able to pick up another language. Picking up new programming and system admin things is becoming increasingly hard as well Iāve noticed. Iām around 16-18 years older than everyone else in my classes and they are so much quicker with far less effort put in. My professors say my writing is usually better than the kidsā though and I show more life experience, whatever that means. 
But on the verbal and listening side they can just run circles around me. I really have to put in practice and think about that so I come off as frustratingly slow if I have to wander too far off my practiced area.
We donāt like to hear it but the body and mind really does start to break down after 40-45. Weāre just better at medically dragging out/slowing down that downward slide with modern technology. Some people manage better than others and a general rule of thumb Iāve heard is if itās good for the heart itās good for the brain too. Iāve noticed slow downs in just the last 3-4 years. I was much faster when I started taking JPN classes in 2018. Iām sure the pandemic and watching the world kind of fall apart related stress has been part of my issues too.
Forgot to reply to this one earlier: but yes translations are complicated. For a simple example āyokattaā is the past tense of the adjective ii (pronounced ee, it means āgoodā) and by the dictionary means āit was goodā but itās used all the time to mean āI did wellā or āhooray we did itā or āIf you like, please go on itās fineā or āthat was fun/amazingā (although sugoi and its derivatives are used often for the last) etc. Japanese is rather vague compared to western European languages and thereās usually a lot of play in direct translations. Iāve watched some anime and heard some translations I didnāt quite agree with. Like most things there are some words/phrases that donāt exactly 1:1 move over and youāve got to do your best to follow the spirit of whatās being said instead of the literal meaning.
What I mean is that some translations go from simple to unexpectedly academic and well-read. It is as if a PhD student dropped by and wanted to add colour to otherwise mundane dialog. I know some people are extra passionate but it just cracks me up. What also cracks me up is when anime characters end their sentences with what sounds like n**ga. Sounds offensive or rad. Ha ha.
I only know one guy who was super serious about learning Japanese in elementary/middle school. It was because he was deep into the culture, wanting to read manga and play video games, esp. RPGs, in the original language, like the Final Fantasy games. That was before I believe translated manga were widely available.
A way to segue back into books is to say that what attracted me to anime/manga was the strong female (main) characters in them. Of course, the corpus also has innumerable exploitative characterizations. But yeah, for the elementary school me and the current me, good fiction and my favourite stories require strong females. I only realized that pattern when I become an adult. Next requirement would be good prose, art and/or music (if it were animated or made into a movie).
I usually read crime novels, preferably those with series heroes. I think Donna Leon invented this genre. In the meantime, there are quite a few of these book series. But every now and then my brain needs something more challenging, mostly in the fields of politics and (the bad german) history, architecture, natural sciences and, of course, photography.
Lee Miller impressed me, for example her picture in Hitlerās bathtub (Lee Miller in Hitlerās Bathtub, Hitlerās Apartment, 16 Prinzregentenplatz, Munich, Germany, 1945 - Lee Miller - WikiArt.org). It wasnāt the bathtub that was essential to her, but her shoes on the carpet in front of it: it was a satisfaction to her that the dirt from the Dachau concentration camp, which she had visited immediately before, had now ruined Hilterās spotless white carpet.
Iām mostly into it for my mid-life crisis (maybe more like one-third-life) if Iām honest, not entirely happy with the direction of my day job career as I picked a safe but uninteresting option out of grad school. A little more than a decade down the road now and I donāt think Iāve got much longer in corporate type IT world before I go completely and utterly mad. Unfortunately I went and did some dumb things like buying a house in a place I donāt really want to live for career Iām not interested in so uprooting is going to be painful and probably financially unwise. But as one of the 36 stratagems goes sometimes you need to sacrifice the plum tree to save the peach tree.
But my interest has been mostly academic as Iām looking into Japanese and Asian astronomy folklore. My BS and MS degrees are in physics, astronomy and engineering and I remember the astronomy history classes being very western focused. Iām a curious type, thought about it, realized entire other civilizations existed with agriculture and maritime traditions which (if you donāt have a compass or a clock) infers astronomical record keeping and folklore. Unfortunately between the Great Leap Forward in the mid-20th century China and the Meiji Periodās extreme focus on westernizing in Japan a lot of that has been lost, certainly not much of it has been brought into the western world either. So I guess you can count that as some reading material, thereās been some recent papers Iāve been reading on this subject in preparation for deciding next moves, potential grant proposals, etc.
My wife and I also have several Japanese friends and itās nice to at least be able to make an attempt to communicate with them in their native tongue. A close friend of ours has her mother over from Japan this month and her English isnāt that strong so itās been good practice. Sheās given me good, honest feedback on my abilities and where I should practice. Plus sheās really good at making bento lunch!
Non-western science and society? I donāt what else to call it as it is late into the night. 
Speaking of folklore, our discussion of manga/anime and your admission of mid-life crisis, I am reminded of Mushishi. If you havenāt read/watched it, give it a try. The OP song for the first season (I think I shared it in the forums before for some reason but I canāt find itā¦):
Finally have time this morning to pitch in a postā¦
My leisure reading has been predominantly science fiction. My time for reading over the years winnowed down to periods of airline travel; one item of my pre-trip checklist was to get a couple of tomes for the Nook, and later the Kindle. So, COVID and semi-retirement pretty much shut down that opportunity, with the only travel Iāve done in that period being a trip to see my mom.
Okay, thatās not about what Iāve read, but on that trip I finished up a Joshua Dalzelle series Iād started a few years ago, and then the āA Memory Called Empireā/āA Desolation Called Peaceā duo by Arkady Martine that @bastibe referenced. Quite a different take on diplomacy, culture, and the bearing of arms than what I was used to.
If I had to call out one work Iāve read in the past two decades, itād be āThe Three Body Problemā series by Liu Cixin. Really give you pause to consider the possible outcomes of evolution, and the implications of our place in the universeā¦
The Three Body Problem was indeed a fascinating book. So many interesting ideas! Such a weird translation! And a thought-provoking theme and viewpoint to boot. I enjoyed those books tremendously.
Other similarly inventive Science Fiction book that come to mind were Neal Stephensonās Snow Crash, Kim Stanley Robinsonās 2312, and Ann Leckeyās Ancillary trilogy.
Yes, I remember the thrill of reading Snow Crash when it came out. A friend had a copy which was passed around, read and passed around more. Neuromancer by Gibson was a similar experience.
I recently read The Three Body Problem, can agree on the translation
Neuromancer is great, really atmospheric and pure cyberpunk.
I am currently going through the Capital Volume I to get some better idea of the world and capitalism. Would like to make an essay outline on it for the good access.
Wow, I was almost forgetting those, they made my brain hurt! Despite the weird english translation I enjoyed the ideas and the incredible, mind-blowing vastness that these books evoked!
And the fundamental idea at the base, about the expected behaviour of intelligent, space-faring species? So, so dark but realistic!
Can anybody comment on the chinese movie inspired to one of the short stories by Liu Cixin (The wandering earth)?
What am I reading? Does the darktable manual count? If not, how about Rawpedia? LOL
Actually not too much at the moment, at least in terms of traditional books (physical or otherwise). I read Tolkien heavily for years (years ago), but not too much since. Lately itās been amateur astronomy related books and magazines. Plus landscape photography stuff, although not as much recent work (John Shaw, etc.). Years ago I tried reading K&R, Petzold and such. Found it very interesting, but no claims as to how much I really absorbed in any useful way.
My biggest problem with reading is that it puts me to sleep. Doesnāt matter what topic nor subject, no matter how interesting I find it, how enjoyable / engaging it is, how necessary it may beā¦ I can be absolutely immersed in a book, article, magazine, paper, digital, whateverā¦ and before long Iām struggling to stay awake. Day, night, no matter. It can be very frustrating, not to mention a real impediment to learning and knowledge retention.
Iāve heard that such is (or at least, can be) evidence of chronic sleep deprivation. Well, I have hours in bed, but no guarantees of hours of quality sleep. I canāt remember the last time (ever) that I woke up refreshed so maybe thereās a connectionā¦
ā¦zzzzzzzz
(just kidding ā¦ barely) 
This is what I have read so far. (lot of german titles, sorry 
)
In short, I mostly like fantasy stuff like Richard Schwartz, Sam Feuerbach, Markus Heitz, Brandon Sanderson, etcā¦ And now and then a little Sci-Fi.
Right now I am here:
And there:
Brian Klaas: Corruptible: Who gets power and how it changes us
ISBN 9781529338096
I found this gem late 2021 in a bookstore but didnāt take the time to read it until earlier this year. It is awesomely insightful. Maybe it resonated more with me than it will with some, because misuse of power by others is my biggest bugbear - whether it impacts me directly or not.
Highly recommended!
For some reason or another I havenāt had the concentration to read books for a few years, even if that has been one of my favorite pastimes since I was a young child and first learned to read.
But, my favorite author of late (for years is perhaps more accurate) is undoubtedly Haruki Murakami as he awakened my lust of reading again with his novel āKafka on the beachā, after another ādroughtā in my reading.
Currently Iām in a state of non-reading again, but Iām trying to jumpstart it again with Murakamiās (so far brilliant) āKilling commendatoreā to get the joy of reading backā¦
I just love the fantastical and magical worlds Murakami builds, while at the same time he manages to make them feel so real and relatable. That is magic to me.