Japanese Society UK Book Discussion Events 2026

Japanese Reading
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The Japanese Society UK runs an online book discussion event every other month. The participants discuss the contents of a previously read book. The discussion is in English. The books are written by Japanese authors, but the majority of the participants seems to read the books in English. To participate in the event, the society asks non-members for a donation.

I participated in one such event and found it very interesting. The society has published the 2026 events, and I am planning to participate in one or more of them. Here is a list of the books they have lined up, and the event dates:

I will be reading the book(s) in Japanese and I thought that maybe some of you might be interested in joining me so we can read together?

(The participation in the events is of course independent from the reading, and fully up to you.)

What do you think?

  • Yay, let’s read together!
  • Hmmm… maybe…
  • Nope, not for me.
0 voters

Which books would you be interested in?

  • March: 春の城 (only paperback?)
  • May: ゼロの焦点
  • July: ハートに火をつけて! (only paperback?)
  • Sept: 消滅世界
  • Nov: 三度目の恋
0 voters
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I did not know such a group exists! They have interesting and varied choices for the books.

I would like to join you in reading some of them. They all look tempting, but I voted for the ones with digital copies as that is the most convenient for me to get ahold of (and I have already read 消滅世界).

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I’m also interested (but potentially a bit busy for the first half of this year).

I’ve seen these english translations of Suzuki Izumi in lots of bookshops and have thought they look really interesting.

But oddly her books don’t seem to be so popular in Japan (there don’t seem to be many/any bunkobon versions in print atm :pensive_face:)

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I probably won’t join, but I’m thankful you’ve mentioned this group! Maybe next year (or very optimistically in the latter half of this one) I’ll try and make joining a priority.

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what a great way to discover new books!

I’m in the camp of - this looks amazing but I need to plan it into a better time in my life and when I can read Japanese more confidently. I’ll be watching :eyes:

maybe I’ll join spontaneously at some point, or failing that, actually plan it into my reading in the future

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Thanks for your interest everybody! :blush:

Same here! :sweat_smile:
Plus, the March book (春の城) is ~900 pages (apparently the author worked on it for 50 years!) which is fascinating in itself, but I don’t think I could finish the book in time anyways…

@shitsurei @mitrac Fitting them in is always the issue :sweat_smile: For me as well. But at least I found some nice spots for them in the 2026 bingo, so there’s that double motivation :rofl:

I am thinking of starting ゼロの焦点 around mid-March, would that work for you @bungakushoujo?

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I think it should! The size has me intimidated, though :laughing: hopefully it’s engaging

Edit: ah sorry I misunderstood, it appears to be a standard length at 337 pages :slightly_smiling_face:

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I liked ゼロの焦点 – I think it’s one of the author’s better mysteries. Don’t be put off by the cover image, I suspect they put that in to try to attract the people who liked all the railway timetable stuff from 点と線 :slight_smile:

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Ah sorry, yes that was a bit unclear! I was referring to 春の城 which is ~900 pages :face_with_spiral_eyes: The others are all standard-sized books luckily :sweat_smile:

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