This will be an informal book club for:
There was previously a schedule-based book club here, but enough of us were interested in an informal club instead
I’ll add to this closer to the start date, but for now:
Word list (words-only) for Vol 1: Flesh & Blood - vol 1 多分 - Google Docs
Tagging @soggyboy and @taiyousea here as well just in case.
Edit: this is a good omen; I just found out that a new F&B short story collection was announced~
I know there’s probably some nervousness for potential readers at the book’s high level rating; is there anything I can do ahead of time as someone who’s read the majority of the series to help ease in new readers?
I do have an Anki deck I can share ahead of time, though it’s a bit disorganized: it’s all the words I’ve mined from F&B, vol. 1-17 and all the bonus stories I’d read up until that point. I don’t have any chapter/volume divisions, unfortunately, as when I started I never thought it’d be used for anything but private use, but I’m happy to share it here if it helps anyone. You can probably get a rough estimate of which words were added from which book if you sort by card create date, though that doesn’t guarantee anything.
(Please note that this deck doesn’t contain all vocab from vols. 1-17, but just the vocab I didn’t know/wanted reinforcement of at the time. There’s just under 5800 cards here given that, however, so still plenty to study! Also note that there may be duplicates; I’ve tried to de-duplicate as best I could, but I’m sure some stuff still slipped through.)
Anki shared deck here, Google drive backup here.
(As a bonus, here are all the rest of the F&B cards I only half made. I can’t image anyone would want them [they contain the Japanese word on the front and nothing else], but just in case here’s another 2000 cards to sate your F&B desires.)
Actually that’s much more useful for me 
(I’m importing into jpdb). I wish there was an easy way to export just the front of the cards from an Anki deck. I’ll just have to manipulate it when I’m on my pc
Edit: btw the first two chapters had a vocab list in the original club
Do you have an idea of what’s so difficult about it? I’m assuming pirate/fantasy vocab, but it still seems awfully high for just that…
I was planning on shoving the whole book into jpdb pretty soon and hopefully learn enough words by January to make it doable, but that will only work if it’s a vocabulary issue
Oh, awesome! I’m glad they’re handy!
Maybe check the find and replace function on desktop Anki? i know you can mass delete tags that way (search for .* and replace with nothing), but I’m not sure if you can do that with the back or not; I’m not at my computer at the moment.
First volume-wise vocabulary is probably going to be the biggest hurdle. 
The author does dip into N1 grammar at points in the series, but I don’t recall if any of that comes up in volume 1. I can tell you that a younger eefara was able to power through the volume with a total of like 4 novels under their belt a few years ago, so I don’t have any concerns for your personal ability @shitsurei.
Vocab-wise, I will say expect less pirate/fantasy vocab in this particular volume and expect more: historical terms and very polite modes of speech in general. There may be some specific nautical terms used here, but they won’t be as frequent as later volumes. One character does a bit of a history info dump partway through the book, but I plan on writing up a summary of that for folks down the line for you to check your understanding against.
It’s been a little while since I’ve refreshed my knowledge of the first book, but I have been going through the first drama CD recently, which should match up fairly well as a microcosm of what to expect.
It’s dead easy to do with find & replace on PC, if you have a good text editor. No need to edit in Anki (at least for me, doing Ctrl+H & Ctrl+Enter / Ctrl+Alt+Enter in VS Code is way easier than doing literally anything in Anki 笑)
Here’s a google doc with all the words, if anyone wants it. I pasted into a new jpdb deck, and it spit out 5895 words… of which I know 1771 
I’m not sure how many I’ll actually do vs just using lookups on my Kindle, when the time comes. Edit: Vol 1 list
This sounds fun
This sounds probably less fun That’s very kind of you
I may have to hunt for that sometime soon… sounds like fun listening practice!
I think the wk book club for this had a chart with nautical/ship vocabulary.
Excited to read this! 
Keep in mind only a small fraction of those words are in volume 1; the vast majority you will likely not see.
There are 24 drama CDs and a bunch of bonus CDs, and all are excellent! Highly recommended! There are even scripts for the CDs floating around if you can find them.
Yes, that’s correct! I’m happy to bring over stuff from the WK thread here if needed.
Yeah - that’s why I’ll most likely just do lookups as I go. I tried checking the created dates… but there’s wasn’t a coherent enough pattern for me to figure out what might be Vol 1. If I do try to do it, I’ll add batches of like 500 words at a time to the jpdb deck. In the meantime, I’ve managed to extract all the Kansai-ben words from JM Dict… so I’ll be having fun with that
Recommendations on how/ where to find?
I’ve made the OP a wiki, so feel free to add anything like that
My best suggestion would be to focus on cards created prior to August 1, 2022, as that’s the date I started F&B 2, and after June 2, 2022, when I started volume 1. It probably won’t be totally foolproof, but should get you close enough.
I’ll message you.
Cool - I’ll make a list of those, and share here later today then
Ok - I made the list F&B Vol 1 多分… which netted me 476/1448 in jpdb. Skimmed the first page or two of New - looks like some interesting vocab. May revisit in December
I’m curious how many learned words @shitsurei will have if/when they use the same list in jpdb… 
I’m used to doing lookups as I go, so I’ll just keep doing that. I’ve read some other historical-setting novels and have the Kindle version so I feel like the vocab shouldn’t be unmanageable even if there’s an infodump here or there.
There are already character lists and historical notes in the other F&B threads, right? I feel like that’s going to be really helpful.
Probably fewer. @暁のルナ puts my study regimen to shame (but now I’m curious so I’ll probably do it after lunch )
If there’s not, I’m happy to set something up here when the time comes. 
Pretty sure I saw those, either on here or the WK post. I’m sleep deprived though… so if someone wants to add them to the OP, feel free. Otherwise I’ll do it… eventually
Fwiw, I’ve barely touched jpdb in recent weeks… btwn Grimgar & Kansai stuff. I’m probly gonna do a bit of it today though, cuz I made a custom deck, and also added the Lovely Complex deck… and well, it’s a lower energy thing than actually reading.
I added a participation poll in the OP for any who would like click it! 
arg piratey noises…
this is starting in Jan 2026…now it’s more approachable…and it turns out I don’t have these…thought I did but they are on sale on BW…so happy joy…
Might join after all. But I really wanted to finish my bingo and blackout if at all possible before picking up something super hard… (L35)… but Jan 2026…
tempting… very very tempting…
edit - ok guess Im joining you now (if you don’t read too fast) 
