Welcome to the Boys’ Love Book Club & BL University!
This is newly-formed book club for those who enjoy BL! 
We have also recently established BL University, for those who wish to delve deeper into the world of BL.
Feel free to use this thread to discuss BL and share recommendations; important posts concerning nominations and voting will be linked in this post for convenience.
Set this thread to ‘Watching’ to be notified of future updates. 
Book Club 
| Status | Natively Page | Home Thread |
|---|---|---|
| Finished | 今日からマのつく自由業! | L32 | 🏰 今日からマ王! 👑 Home Thread 👨❤️👨 BL Book Club |
| Finished | 女装してめんどくさい事になってるネクラとヤンキーの両片想い 1 | L25 | 🎀 女装してめんどくさい事になってるネクラとヤンキーの両片想い 👗 Home Thread 👨❤️👨 BL Book Club |
| Finished | FLESH & BLOOD 1 | L36 | 🏴☠ Home Thread for Flesh&Blood ⛵ |
| Finished | ギンモクセイの仕立て屋 | L24 | 🕴 Home Thread for ギンモクセイの仕立て屋 👔 |
| Current | 僕らの食卓 | L19 | 🥘 Home Thread for 僕らの食卓 👨👨👦 | Week 6 |
| Next | ガンバレ! 中村くん! ! (vols 1-2) | 😨 Home Thread for ガンバレ! 中村くん! ! 😃 | Starting Nov 11 |
| Next | 魔法少年なつき×らびっツ (Series) | TBA |
| Next | こいものがたり (vols 1-2) | TBA |
BL University 
Our professors have compiled Natively lists for those who want to explore and gain a deeper understanding of BL.
| List | Description | Book Club |
|---|---|---|
| Early Western Canon | Early BL works that gained popularity in the West | |
| Beyond Fiction | Non-fiction related to the BL genre | |
| Epic Light Novel Series | Long-running LNs by volume count | |
| Epic Manga Series | Long-running manga by volume count | |
| Pre-Omegaverse | The development of Mpreg prior to the Omegaverse | |
| Top-Rated LNs | The most popular light novels, according to ちるちる | |
| 70s Manga | History of BL manga - 70s origins | link |
| BL in Translation | BL works from around the world available in Japanese | |
| 1980s Manga | History of BL manga - 80s taking root | |
| 1980s Manga (extra credit) | ||
| Fujoshi & Fudanshi | Characters obsessed with BL |
Have a look at the BL University List Suggestions (there’s also a spreadsheet) and feel free to add your own!
Book Club Selection Process 
🇳🇴🇲🇮🇳🇦🇹🇮🇴🇳🇸 → 🇻🇴🇹🇮🇳🇬 → 🇵🇷🇪🇵🇦🇷🇦🇹🇮🇴🇳 → 🇷🇪🇦🇩🇮🇳🇬
Nomination Phase
- Nominations can be submitted when the thread title includes [NOMINATIONS OPEN]
- Use the nomination template below to nominate your desired book.
- You can nominate as many books as you like, but must wait 1 week between each nomination.
- The current nominations will be displayed in a nomination list.
- Any book type (light novel, manga, etc) may be submitted.
- Non-BL with BL vibes (bromance, suggestive) are accepted.
- Only the first volume of a series is eligible for nomination, unless the series can be read as standalone books (such as anthology series), in which case, any volume can be submitted.
- Ensure your nomination isn’t on the list of Temporarily Excluded Titles.
- A maximum of 20 nominations will be accepted.
Nomination Template
Copy and paste the text below into a reply, and fill out the information for your nomination.
Cover image (optional)
**Title**: Put the Natively link here.
**Book type**: (light novel, manga, etc)
**Available formats**: physical / ebook / audiobook / full-furigana (delete as appropriate)
[details="Summary - Japanese"]
Copy and paste the Japanese summary from whichever source you prefer.
[/details]
[details="Summary - English"]
Check Anilist or similar sites to see if they have an English summary. If not, use a machine translator like DeepL or Google Translate.
[/details]
[details="Content Warnings"]
If you know whether the book contains adult content or potentially triggering topics, include the information here.
[/details]
**Reason(s) for nominating:** Share the reason you are nominating this book - it might persuade others to vote for it!
Voting Phase
- A poll will be held to vote on the nominations.
- Each person will be allotted 5 votes.
- The poll will be open for 9 days, from Saturday to Sunday of the following week.
- In case of a tie for first place, a runoff vote will be held to decide the winner.
- The lowest-voted 3 nominations (as well as any ties) will be temporarily excluded from the following selection cycle to make room for fresh titles.
Preparation Phase
- A dedicated home thread for the winning book will be posted; all further information and discussion regarding the book will continue there.
- A poll to decide the start date will be opened, allowing time for people to obtain the book before the club begins reading.
- A poll to decide on the reading pace will be included, based on how many pages or chapters people want to read every week.
Reading Phase
- A weekly thread will be posted for discussion on the scheduled reading, usually on Sunday night or Monday morning.
Discussion Guidelines
- Spoilers should always be hidden using spoiler blur.
- When discussing a specific section, please mention where you are in the book, ideally by chapter so people reading different versions have a clear point of reference.
- Feel free to read ahead if it’s exciting, but please refrain from spoiling ahead of the appropriate week.
- If you have a question about grammar, vocab, cultural things, etc - ask! That’s a welcome part of the discussion too, and other readers will be happy to help.
General Information
- The book club guidelines are decided by the community based on polls.
- The book club selection process may be referred to by other names (nomination cycle, voting round), all of which refer to the same series of stages, beginning with the nomination phase and ending with the reading phase.
- The winning book may be referred to as the book club’s “read”, “pick”, “choice”, etc.
- The next cycle begins after the reading phase has started; there is usually an overlap between the reading phase and the next nomination phase.
- If the book is part of a series, only the first volume will be read (but may continue via an offshoot book club).
Miscellaneous 
Previous Polls
- Should nominations be limited to certain types of books?
- How many nominations should each person be allowed?
- How many votes should each person get?
- What information should be included in the nomination list?
- How long should voting be open for?
- Which volumes in a series should be eligible for nomination?
- Should non-winning titles automatically roll over to the next nomination cycle?
- Should non-BL with BL vibes be accepted?
- Should certain nominations be disqualified from the next selection cycle?
- How many of the lowest-voted titles should be eliminated?
- What should happen if there is a tie for first place?
- How should we decide the reading order in case of a tie?
- Should nominations be closed until nearer the next vote?
Selection History
C - selection cycle
- C1: Nominations | Voting | Results
- C2: Nominations | Voting | Results
- C3: Nominations | Voting | Results
- C4: Nominations | Voting | Results
Temporarily Excluded Titles
These nominations received the fewest votes in the poll, and so have been removed to make room for fresh titles. They will be eligible for renomination after the suspension period has passed.
C - selection cycle.
C1 eliminations (eligible for renomination from C3)
C2 eliminations (eligible for renomination from C4)
I would prefer to just do a book club as BLCDs can be difficult and expensive to get outside of Japan but I’m happy with whatever really! Also very flexible with whatever start date people want. 
Maybe this can be the push I need to finally start reading BL novels in Japanese （笑）
in my experience
Might as well have voted “no”, I guess… If the right book comes along at the right time, I might actually join, but not actively planning to do so.
Much as I would love to start yesterday, as Naphthalene so aptly put it, that would definitely be something of a “my eyes are bigger than my stomach” kind of situation.
