Hello and welcome to the book club for 小川洋子’s most recent book
The schedule in the OP contains the chapters (i.e. short stories) as they appear in the book. They are of pretty even length, with 32 to 39 pages per story.
Note: the pages are recalculated from a digital book, so they may not be 100% accurate. If somebody has the paperback edition, I’d be happy to use the page numbers from there!
I am not sure which amount of pages we are aiming at in this club? Would this already be a good breakdown, or would we want to split each story in half?
I’m planning to pick up the hardback when I’m in Japan in September, so I’ll be ready to start mid September.
I think we have often read at a slower pace (15-20 pages/week).
I’m happy to read at the faster rate (though I’ll have to forebear from doing any other book clubs at the same time). We should check if there are other people who want to join in, but would be put off by the pace.
If we were to read at this faster pace, what if we had a rest/catch-up week after every second or third story? That would provide some breathing room, while still being a faster pace than splitting each story in half. (For myself, I think I could do 30ish pages on some weeks, but not on others.)
Hi @nikoru thank you for running this. I am hoping to take part, but would probably need to be doing 15-20 pages a week, i.e. probably each story in half or allow 2 weeks per story.
So I would vote for starting at that kind of pace and speeding up if the book turns out easier than expected.
I also like @crispetynougat’s idea of “breathing weeks” as I can also do more some weeks than others, but I suspect that still wouldn’t allow me to keep up with the faster pace.
However, don’t worry too much, I don’t want to hold people up and if I enjoy the book and get a reasonable way in I will probably keep going even if I get behind. Also it is still possible that life will get in the way and I end up giving up early, (even if we go more slowly).
Thanks everybody for your input! As most of you suggested a slower pace (which is totally fine for me!) let’s simply split each story in half to avoid strange breaks at the start or end of stories. In the 人質 book club this worked amazingly well, so I‘m happy to try it out here as well
I am away from my computer right now, but I will set up the new schedule later or tomorrow.
Would September 12th work for everybody as the start date?
Sept 12 would work for me. I haven’t seen the book yet but should easily be able to get it by then. Intending to buy several other Ogawa books at the same time so possibly I might be able to contribute some ideas next time, or maybe it is just 積読
I split each story in half, and this looks quite okay to me (there are one or two weeks that go over 20 pages, but I hope it will be fine overall).
Also please notice that the page counts are derived from my digital copy, so they might not be 100% accurate.
I am horribly behind! So sorry y’all. 不徳の致すところです。Hopefully I will get some proper reading time this week. I’ll skip ahead to the third story in order to stay with the group.
Good news, I decided that would be a foolish move after all, so I am continuing on with the second story, even if this means I will be permanently behind. (And thanks!)
2 Likes
As an Amazon Associate, Natively earns from qualifying purchases through any Amazon links on the site.
