Reading for beginners - any book recommendations?
 

I tried to search the forums for a thread like this but had a bit of a hard time finding anything so if a thread like this already exists please point me to it.

I like to read as much as I can in Japanese but find it difficult to find books that wouldn't be too advanced for me at my current level, although i haven't been studying for very long i can normally figure out the meanings of most sentences (I mainly struggle a little when the conversation is super casual/colloquial since my vocabulary is quite limited and i can't tell when words are being shortened etc.)

So i wondered, do you have any recommendations for Books/Manga/Magazines/Anything for beginners or even intermediate Japanese learners to read?

So far i read the following:
無限の住人 Vols 1,2,3,4 and 5 (I have the first 2 in the translated English from before i started learning Japanese which is nice)
サムライ・チャンプル Vol.１ (Vol 2 doesnt seem to exists anywhere other than amazon.co.jp and unfortunatly my current card isn't accepted there ¬_¬)
あらしのよるに
ピタ・パン
長くつ下のピッピ
(Nothin' like a couple of good children's books :p )
And i have 5 graded reader short stories for Japanese learners.

Most of my reading is done from the internet but i would like to read more books, so if you have any recommendations i would be most grateful :)

Have you tried this store? Sasuga Book, not a huge choice, but being in USA it is faster. Sometimes unfortunately they are out of stock so they order from Japan and that takes a bit longer (but no extra charges and regular shipping sometimes is free).

As per kids books I had bought one which is bilingual called まんが日本昔ばなし。。。妖しのお話. But I soon realized that strangely it is easier a "grown up" book. I guess that is because a kid book is not really written with the Japanese we study, but more a childish one? Don't know, but truth is I temporally abandoned it and I am reading something I like better (紫蘭の花嫁, むらさきらん　の　はなよめ).

There are two books that I got from friends for Christmas this past year, which are amazing to read for beginners, intermediates, anything. I'll get back to you later today on the details, ISBN's, all that jazz.

@chryuop:
Thanks for the link to the site i will take a look at the books they have there.

@ThirdSight:
Thanks, i will check back here again for your suggestions.