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(3.92/5)Great selection of nonfiction for the interested learner
Read Real Japanese Essays is a nice little graded reader: it covers 8 nonfiction essays from well-known authors (such as Murakami Haruki and Yoshimoto Banana) and comes with accompanying professionally-recorded audio, courtesy of Reiko Matsunaga (my copy is old enough to have a CD, but more recent copies direct you to an audio download on the publisher's website).
Each story is presented with the Japanese text on the right page and an English gloss on the left. All kanji are marked with furigana the first time they appear, but not any other. The back of the book has a dedicated dictionary that lists definitions for the particular usage the word used in that essay's particular context, as well as a section for each essay breaking down grammar.
I enjoyed the essay selection; they cover a wide variety of topics, from lying to beauty to mathematics to literature. The audio portion is really well done, and while it would have been nice to have a male narrator for comparison's sake, Ms. Matsunaga did a wonderful job.
I would recommend the interested learner be at least intermediate level before tackling this material; the editor did all they could to make the journey as smooth as possible, but you're still going to need a certain level of Japanese to not make this a painful one.
Extremely useful, moderately interesting
This is one of the most useful tools for learning Japanese I have encountered. It gives you native-level essays along with line-by-line translations, vocabulary, and grammar explanations in order to conquer each one. The essays themselves are varied in their topics, but that also means they're varied in terms of how interesting they are. The difficulty of some essays also seem to vary as well; a few I could "grasp" and a few definitely felt like a slog to finish and, even then, I still feel like I didn't fully understand.
Ultimately, I think it comes down to reading preference. As useful as this book is, I constantly found myself in the back of my mind longing to return to other books I have laying around that I'm certain I would enjoy much more. This book feels much more like an academic textbook than something I would joyfully read in my free time in that regard.