Book club suggestions

Japanese Reading Book Clubs
21

I’m down too :blush:

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22

Do you mean reading stuff in classical japanese, or just classic lit? :wink:

I’m not so interested in Genji since (a) I’ve read it in English and (b) I’m not super-interested in reading it in a translation into modern Japanese. But classics in the “modern Japanese literature” sense might be interesting (I’ve read a little Soseki and Tanizaki, for instance).

Speaking of Tanizaki, we’re about to start reading 痴人の愛 in an informal book club in a few weeks.

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23

There are two more weeks, don’t scare me like that.
I am late on literally everything and reading something completely unrelated to those clubs/books I have to read.

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24

I’d never considered reading kotenbu, now you made me want to read it :sweat_smile:

This looks cool, reading short stories might be a better choice when it comes to classics (and language difficulty) :thinking:

I’m not that much arrogant :sweat_smile:
I had ‘classics in the “modern Japanese literature” sense’ in my mind when I wrote my suggestion, but while typing I also remembered Genji and the fact that I’ve been waiting for a good opportunity to read it for a long time.

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25

Oops, sorry :slight_smile: I think of it as “very soon” because I haven’t got round to putting in the book order for it yet…

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26

…and now I have – cdjapan shipping does indeed seem to be cheaper than amazon these days, which is nice given how bad amazon Japan are at packing books.

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27

Would people be interested in a sports book club? I was thinking both manga and novels (though I personally was leaning more toward novels since sports manga series all seem to be so long while one-shots don’t seem uncommon with novels, but like I said, both would be welcome)

  • Yes
  • Maybe
0 voters

Not that I exactly know how to run one, but I’ll try

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28

@shablul, could you make the home post a wiki so we can add links to existing polls for new voters and future reference?

Another poll, since I know @cat and @Biblio might be interested:

Would you be interested in a nonfiction book club?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Maybe
0 voters

If there’s enough interest I wouldn’t mind setting everything up, but this absolutely wouldn’t happen before the new year.

Also curious (this is more an open, general question for anyone who’d be interested in setting it up themselves; I just like polls):

Would you be interested in a manga-only club?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Maybe
0 voters
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29

done :sunglasses: and added the new polls anyways lol

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30

I think the issue with this is that manga can be a HUGE span of genres and intended age ranges. I think generally manga series would have more success as informal clubs where a specific series is announced and people can opt to read along if they choose.

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31

agreed, pretty much the reason I said a “maybe”
I honestly read mainly manga but I will think about joining a manga only club only if it has some catch or rule of thumb that catches my interest

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32

What kind of narrowing criteria comes to mind? Specific examples as well as general ones. The suggestion was a pretty broad one for sure; I figure this is a good use of the thread, though: narrowing down what the people really want to see.

Potential specific criteria I can think of off the top of my head:

  • Manga in a specific genre
  • Manga within a certain level range
  • Manga running in specific magazines
  • Manga published during a specific time period
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33

Non fiction is a pretty broad range, so I can imagine there being a lot of “depends on the book” there. I have 振仮名の歴史 | L30?? in the cdjapan order I just placed yesterday…

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34

What would be a good way to narrow down a nonfiction club? :thinking: Honestly I feel like the biggest potential issue with narrowing down the accepted books is getting a decent number of nominations; nonfiction is already a pretty niche reading genre for Japanese learners, and I feel like it would be constricting potential nominations/joiners if we limit to a certain nonfiction topic.

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35

Just reading along, but some potential ideas to narrow down non-fiction selections:

  • ルポ/reportage books about social issues in Japan (there are tons of these)
  • By topic, such as history, science, social studies, etc
  • Essays, memoirs, biographies
  • Travel reports
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36

I think manga from certain levels, specific time periods or even made by specific mangaka for example is a good way to narrow it down

The first one especially could be good for beginner learners though not sure if it’s us who should be nominating this or of it’s something that should come from a beginner strating a beginner group :thinking:

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37

I dunno that I’d try to narrow it down ahead of time; just take nominations in all categories and expect that any particular book might have fewer participants (or run two in parallel if there’s a lot of interest in the runner up that didn’t overlap with the winning nomination).

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38

Since we’re doing random polls, here’s another one:

Would you be interested in a horror book club?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Maybe
  • Only at specific times of the year (eg around Halloween)
0 voters
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39

Specific times of year should also include high summer when it’s very hot, since that’s the Japanese horror season! :ghost:

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40

:eyes: when I google this it gives me cars… :rofl: :see_no_evil:

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