🇰🇷 Korean Fiction Book Club 📖 Starting 기억술사 1 on April 7! 📚

[bungakushoujo]

Ok, it’s time to vote! I will leave the poll up until next Sunday, then we can start when we have a winner.

What should we read?

• 아무것도 안 하는 녀석들
• 오백 년째 열다섯
• 테스터

When should we start reading the winner?

• Right away! (June 17)
• Late June (24)
• July 1
• Another time (comment)

[HopeWaterfall]

I just did a list, so we can look back on past nominations. I’ll add the new ones as soon as we finish picking this round.

Korean Fiction Book Club Past nominations | Korean list by HopeWaterfall

[HopeWaterfall]

Starting off strong. Some strange math going on here however.

[bungakushoujo]

It looks like we have a winner with 오백 년째 열다섯 at 3 votes or 60%! I see everyone’s preference is to start June 24th, so let’s go with that as a date. I’ll get a home thread set up in the next few days.

[bungakushoujo]

Hey everyone!
The current book club is supposed to wrap up in a few weeks, so I wanted to check about interest for another round?

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to participate in the current round and have not really studied Korean in 2024 so far (only have room for so many hobbies and life events at once, and Korean got put on the bench this year ), so if someone else is interested in running the book club and being more hands on, please feel free to let me know! If not, I am happy to keep organizing the polls and threads.

[caramelcrunch]

i am 1000% interested in joining the next round! because it’ll be my first time participating in a book club here, i’d prefer to only read and discuss with everyone, but i’m willing to be more hands on in the future.

[bungakushoujo]

Hi all! It seems that there is some interest for a next round, so I am happy to help organize again (maybe this time I will actually read haha…)!

Let’s say nominations are open until September 10th? Feel free to suggest something you previously suggested, or a fresh new option! Let’s go~!

[bizoo]

Book: 밤을 건너는 소년 | L26??
Genre: Magic/Fantasy
Length: 192
Is there an ebook available?: yes

Summary - Korean

“네 마술은 진짜 같아. 그 시간이 어디로 어떻게 흘러갔는지 모르겠어.” 지독히도 불행한 세 소년 앞에 마술사 부자가 나타나면서 마법 같은 기이한 일들이 벌어진다. 동지인지 적인지 마술사 부자의 정체를 알 수 없지만, 신비로운 마술을 보고 나면 왠지 모르게 마음이 평온해진다. 마술이 시작되는 순간, 세 소년의 운명은 어떤 방향으로 흘러가게 될까? 『밤을 건너는 소년』은 밤으로 내몰린 세 소년의 이야기와 미스터리한 마술사의 정체를 추리해 가는 과정을 그린 청소년소설로 2015년 한국문화예술위원회 아르코 문학창작기금 수혜작이다. 사계절 1318문고 백여덟 번째 책이다.

Summary - English

“Your magic seems like it’s real, I don’t know where the time went.” When a rich magician appears in front of three very unfortunate boys, magical and strange things start to happen. They don’t know if he’s a friend or foe, but the mysterious tricks he performs put them at ease. When the magic begins, what direction will the fate of the three boys take? "The Boy Who Crossed the Night is a young adult novel that tells the story of three boys who are thrown into the night and how they try to deduce the identity of a mysterious magician, and was a recipient of the 2015 ARCO Literary Creation Fund of the Korea Arts Council. It is the one hundred and eighth book of Four Seasons 1318 Bunko.

Why are you nominating this book: This looks like a short and simple YA novel with a little mystery (the identity of the magician) to propel the reader through. The language level seems similar to an 이꽃님 novel or 원 테이블 식당 | L22. Chapters are about 5-10 pages long on my ereader.

[bungakushoujo]

Last call for additional nominations! We only have one so far, so it’d be nice to have more for a vote!

[bungakushoujo]

안녕 book friends!

It seems we only received on nomination, so I’d like to ask what people prefer we do now:

• Read 밤을 건너는 소년
• Take a hiatus to allow for more interest + nominations
• Other - please explain

I know this isn’t the most active book club and that the Korean forums are still small, but it would be nice if we could keep this club going and grow the community.

[bungakushoujo]

I left the poll open for a week and it seems like we are happy to read 밤을 건너는 소년!

When do we want to start? I’ll leave this poll up until end of week.

• Right away (September 30th)
• October 7th
• October 14th
• Other

[bizoo]

irl life got me busy as heck for a while but im fully back to regular schedule now. yeah even though its an itsy bitsy book club i think its worth keeping the fire burning for the ppl that will want to join in the future.

happy to start whenever tbh!

[bungakushoujo]

Ok it seems everyone who has been interested in the next round has already voted in the poll, so we will get started in September 30th!
I am on vacation right now but will set up a thread either on Friday or Saturday. If someone who purchases the book earlier can take a stab at breaking down the reading sections into 10 weeks (what we have done historically, but if anyone wants a faster or slower schedule just leave a reply and we can figure it out?) that’d be awesome! If not I can also purchase the book and figure it out this weekend (and try to actually join in the club this next round it’s been a bad year for my Korean studies…)!
Thanks for the patience getting this next round set up everyone!

[bizoo]

I don’t love ending part way through a chapter. We’ve got about 21 chapters so about 2 a week. Page numbers will vary on physical/ereaders but how about:

Week	Chapter title	Starting on page
1	마술사 부자	5
	은밀한 거래	14
2	박쥐의 실체	20
	새가 선택한 소년	29
3	지하 방에서 벌어진 마술	40
	용호파	49
4	거래의 시작	55
	시온이의 마술	63
5	솔선수범	75
	밤의 소년	81
6	피할 수 없는 선택	95
	어긋난 계획	103
7	죄의 고백	110
	희망의 끈	119
8	이상한 징후	123
	배신	133
9	재민이의 빈자리	145
	새로운 마술	149
	미행	154
10	무대 위의 시온이	161
	마법의 순간	169
	작가의 말	177-179 (end)

This works out about 14-20 pages per week.

[bungakushoujo]

Perfect! Thank you!

[brandon]

I will try to keep up with this again, although I failed last time

[brandon]

My book arrived! I must say, I was surprised there were no local bookstores that had it. Had to order online from coupang.

In any case, either this book is much easier than the last one I tried or I’m much better at Korean… the first page i briefly looked at was pretty smooth sailing

[bungakushoujo]

Hi everyone!

We are in the last week of the schedule for our current book, so I wanted to see if there is any interest in starting a new book in January?

• Yes
• No
• Maybe

[bungakushoujo]

It seems like there is interest for another round, so how about we collect nominations until the 20th and then vote until the end of the month? Looking forward to everyone’s picks!

[bizoo]

Book: 너만 모르는 진실 | L26
Genre: Young Adult
Length: ~192 pages
Is there an ebook available?: yes

Summary - Korean

“네가 죽은 게 왜 내 탓이야?”

제갈윤이 학교 옥상에서 뛰어내린 지 7개월 뒤,

나경 고등학교 오픈채팅방에 네 통의 편지를 찍은 사진이 올라온다.

“내 죽음에 책임이 있는 엔지 시네마 부원들에게 편지를 보냅니다…”

선생님도 친구도 외면해온 진실, 마음의 소리가 드러난다.

“세상이 진보한 만큼, 우리의 인간성도 나아졌을까?”

타인에 대한 무관심이 커져가는 지금, 잊지 말아야 할 친절과 다정함의 힘.

Summary - English

“Why is it my fault you’re dead?”

Seven months after Jegalyun jumped off the roof of his school, a photo of four letters was posted in the open chat room of Nakhyung High School.

“I’m writing to the members of Angie Cinema who are responsible for my death…”

The truth, the voice of the heart, is revealed, something that neither teachers nor friends have been able to see.

“As the world has progressed, has our humanity improved?”

The power of kindness and compassion in a time of growing indifference to others.

Content warnings if known

Suicide (based on the blurb this presumably happens off page before the events of the book)

Why are you nominating this book: I think a few ppl put this on their TBR list recently although it might be a bit to similar to 죽이고 싶은 아이 which we read in summer? Looks potentially a little easier than 죽이고 싶은 아이 due to it being prose as opposed to the Talking To The Camera format that dominated that book.