The first murders have occurred. 
Fewer than I thought there’d be, to be honest.
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Just finished reading https://learnnatively.com/book/c660b049b9/, a sampler for one of the nominated books. Highly recommended for those looking to read a short mystery (the sampler covers the first mystery in the book fully), those wanting to test their reading skills on a shorter work (the mystery spans about 32 pages), and those looking to decide if they’d be interested in the full book.
Best of all, it’s free!
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I finished ‘And then there were none’ today! Just in time. 
It was both my first Agatha Christie and the first non Japanese mystery in a while for me.
My feelings about the book
I enjoyed it! I also had to check back for who’s who a bit in the beginning, but a lot of them had useful titles like Dr., the girl, or names like Justice that were referred to often enough by the others.
Trying to keep track of everyone was part of the fun for me. It added to the atmosphere, considering that these characters are really doing the same, trying to get a read on each other and all that.
I timed my reading, too… 250 (not dense) pages in a bit over 3 hours.
I dream of the day those are my stats reading in Japanese. 
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I get emails from Kinokuniya and I saw this book being promoted but with an obi that said 映画決定！so I looked into it and it’s being made into a movie coming out in 2023, produced by Netflix so presumably should be available globally!? What drives me nuts is that I don’t see any info about who is acting in it and I want to know if any of my favorites will be there or not 
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Week 3 thread for 十角館の殺人 is open!
As a reminder, you can absolutely still participate in the earlier threads after the week ends if reading at a different pace than the club.
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Book: 私が大好きな小説家を殺すまで | L25??
Is there an ebook available?: yes
Summary - Japanese
なぜ少女は最愛の先生を殺さなければならなかったのか?
突如失踪した人気小説家・遥川悠真。その背景には、彼が今まで誰にも明かさなかった少女の存在があった。
遥川悠真の小説を愛する少女・幕居梓は、偶然彼に命を救われたことから奇妙な共生関係を結ぶことになる。しかし、遥川が小説を書けなくなったことで事態は一変する。梓は遥川を救う為に彼のゴーストライターになることを決意するが――。才能を失った天才小説家と彼を救いたかった少女、そして迎える衝撃のラスト! なぜ梓は最愛の小説家を殺さなければならなかったのか?
Summary - English
Why did the girl have to kill her beloved teacher?
Harukawa Yuma, a popular novelist, suddenly disappeared. Behind his disappearance was the existence of a girl whom he had never revealed to anyone.
Azusa Makutai, a girl who loves Yuma Harukawa’s novels, is saved by him by chance, and they form a strange symbiotic relationship. However, the situation changes drastically when Harukawa is no longer able to write novels. Azusa decides to become his ghostwriter in order to save Harukawa. A genius novelist who lost his talent, a girl who wanted to save him, and the shocking end that awaits them all! Why did Azusa have to kill her beloved novelist?
Content warnings if known
Murder presumably.
Why are you nominating this book:
I saw this instagram post about it and it seemed interesting (sorry to anyone who doesn’t use instagram). I then bought a copy, read the first few pages and it seemed interesting enough, reasonably easy (probably not 25 but seems sub-30? Guessing off a few pages only) and it’s a light novel, which I know many people on the forums enjoy.
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Since I had two of my nominations cut last time I decided to nominate a new one 
And a hopefully more accessible read for a lot of people, although, of course, I will read whatever is voted on provided I haven’t read it already and it doesn’t have graphic animal cruelty (I have my limits).
This time around I’m going to cap the nominations at 20 just to keep it from being overwhelming and also for the poll issue seanblue called out before. I won’t open voting up until ~October 10th but as the read of 十角館の殺人 is wrapping up I thought I’d get things rolling. As a reminder, nominations can be viewed here.
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Looking at the list, there seem to be 18 nominations, but one of them is the book we’re currently reading, so three more free slots?
As per WK book club practice, I think it might be useful to also keep a list of removed nominations (people might still want to look them up and either re-nominate them or read them on their own) and books read by the club (a total of one in a couple of weeks time for now!)
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I actually had sorta planned something like that via the linking of the home threads in the main post.
My plan was basically to make something like this after we finished our first book:
Nomination List - Click here!
Link to voting results for Current Books
Home Thread for Current Book
Past book clubs!
Voting | Home Thread for X
Voting | Home Thread for Y
Would that work? It seems the simplest to me as it reduces the numbers of posts people have to go dig up on their own if it’s mostly consolidated in the top post.
edit: oh and good call out on 十角館の殺人 still being in the nomination list. I had missed that but it’s removed now.
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Having everything linked in the OP like you have is very convenient, yes.
So you’re saying that instead of keeping a list of the removed nominations, there will be a link to all previous polls and people can see them there? That works too. In WK book clubs there’s a list of all removed nominations (with links to their nomination posts) listed under a details tag so that they don’t take up space. We don’t need to do it like that, of course, just using it as an example. The benefit of that is that it keeps all removed nominations in one place.
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Oh, I see what you’re saying. So having links also to books that got removed due to no votes? Hm, I’ll can do that. Although later as I have to prepare for work now
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It’s definitely nothing urgent
Just a nice thing to have after we’ve had a few runs and the removed nominations have increased to the point that we don’t remember what has already been nominated and what hasn’t.
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I became aware of the author 北村 薫 from this post. I found and read the story referenced, and I quite liked the writing. According to Wikipedia, 'Kitamura is known as a writer of mysteries, and rather than the detective and crime stories of traditional mystery, his work mainly focuses on the logical resolution of more “ordinary” puzzles and questions encountered in everyday life. He is considered a pioneer of this style of mystery in Japan, called “everyday mystery” '.
I wanted to nominate either 夜の蝉, which won the 44th Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1991 or ニッポン硬貨の謎, which won both the 6th Honkaku Mystery Award in 2006 and the 2006 Baka-Misu Award. Read Real Japanese, the book where I read his 百物語 story, has this to say about ニッポン硬貨の謎: ‘a marvelously wacky pastiche, complete with footnotes, that purports - as its subtitle, “Ellery Queen’s Last Case” suggests - to be a translation of the unpublished final work, set in Japan, of the celebrated pseudonymous mystery author and detective, Ellery Queen. This work was also given the Bakamisu prize, which might be translated as the “Are you kidding me!? Mystery Prize,” awarded annually to mysteries with the most mind-boggling, flabbergasting, or ridiculous plots or endings.’
As you see, it sounded like fun, and a good segue to our current reading which also is a homage to, among others, Ellery Queen. But alas, no ebook available, which at least for me, is a major problem. So instead, I thought I’d nominate a relay mystery where he participates, and which is available as an ebook. I tend to not prefer relay mysteries because obviously there can’t have been much careful planning behind the plot, but on the other hand they’re fun in their own way, and a good way to get to know multiple authors at once while still reading one novel instead of a collection of short stories.
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Book: 吹雪の山荘 リレーミステリ | L30??
Is there an ebook available?: yes
Summary - Japanese
雪の舞う大晦日、山荘村で起こる殺人。
人気シリーズの名探偵たちの豪華競演で贈る、ここでしか読めない本格リレー・ミステリ！
雪の舞う大晦日、山荘村である清沢郷へそれぞれの思惑を胸に人々がやってきた。矢吹駆の痕跡を追うナディア・モガール。山荘村の管理人として出稼ぎに来ていた刈谷正雄。休暇を過ごすために訪れたブッキーこと《私》と、若竹七海。原稿執筆のためにカンヅメを計画している法月綸太郎。幽霊山荘のリサーチに来た、大学生・有栖川有栖。やがて新年へと日付が変わるころ、幽霊山荘を探索していたメンバーは首なし死体を発見する！ 次々に不気味な事件が起こる中、彼らは真相を暴けるのか？
Summary - English
(automatic translation)
On a snowy New Year’s Eve, a murder takes place in a mountain villa village.
A full-fledged relay mystery that can only be read here, given by the gorgeous competition of the famous detectives of the popular series!
On the snowy New Year’s Eve, people came to Kiyosawa-go, a mountain villa village, with their own expectations in mind. Nadia Mogal who chases traces of Kakeru Yabuki. Masao Kariya, who came to work as a manager of a mountain villa village. Wakatake Nanami and “I”, a bookie, who came to spend a vacation. Rintaro Noritsuki is planning a kanzume for writing a manuscript. Arisu Arisugawa, a college student who came to research the haunted villa. When the date changes to the new year, the members who were exploring the haunted villa discover a headless corpse! As eerie incidents occur one after another, can they uncover the truth?
Content warnings if known
None known
Why are you nominating this book: See post above. I wanted to nominate something by 北村 薫, but that’s the only book where he participates that’s available in digital form. A relay mystery could be good fun and a way to get to know multiple authors. Here are the authors participating:
笠井潔, 岩崎正吾, 北村薫, 若竹七海, 法月綸太郎, 法月綸太郎, 巽昌章
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Hey all, we have room for 2 more nominations (for a total of 20) if nothing on the list is catching your fancy. Please follow the nomination template from the top post if you wish to nominate a book.
Nominations listed here 
The first book club, 十角館の殺人, officially ends on October 10th* and I’ll be opening voting at that time. Because some club members prefer physical copies there will be a period of 2 weeks between voting close and the first thread opening. As such the schedule will look like this:
- October 10th - voting opens
- October 17th - voting closes and winner announced
- October 31st (Halloween!
) - first weekly thread for the chosen book is opened!
*You are absolutely still welcome to keep posting in those threads though if you’re reading at a different pace!
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I just had a look at the books on my mystery shelf for potential nominations and レベル7 (セブン) | L29 caught my eye - but at 665 pages it’s quite the commitment.
Did we agree on a max page count or something like that? I admit I only checked the OP.
And then I went and had a scroll through. 
The topics been brought up before. So nothing’s stopping me! 
(Unless, now that this first round has been completed, we want to add or change anything. Would also be totally fine. ^^)
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If you’d like to officially nominate it you have only ~a day left. I’ll be opening the poll late this evening my time (so morning of October 10th for European timezones).
That one might be a good match for the WK Advanced Book club though. 
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Yeah, I’ve thought about it. But with that club, I always have in the back of my mind the possibility of a shorter, more difficult book being chosen instead. The nominations are already skewed towards the longer, easier books. So I’d like to nominate it here for now - and if it gets dropped, I can still nominate it over there. 
Book: レベル7 (セブン) | L30??
Is there an ebook available?: No 
Summary - Japanese
レベル7まで行ったら戻れない―。謎の言葉を残して失踪した女子高生。記憶を全て失って目覚めた若い男女の腕に浮かび上がった「Level7」の文字。少女の行方を探すカウンセラーと自分たちが何者なのかを調べる二人。二つの追跡行はやがて交錯し、思いもかけない凶悪な殺人事件へと導いていく。ツイストに次ぐツイスト、緊迫の四日間。気鋭のミステリー作家が放つ力作長編。
Summary - English
Once you get to level 7, you can’t go back. A high school girl disappeared, leaving behind mysterious words. The words “Level 7” appear on the arms of a young man and woman who wake up without all their memories. A counselor searches for the girl’s whereabouts and the two investigate who they are. The two pursuits eventually intersect, leading to an unexpected and heinous murder case. Twist after twist, four days of tension. A powerful full-length work by an up-and-coming mystery writer.
Translated with DeepL Translate: The world's most accurate translator (free version)
Content warnings if known
Not known
Why are you nominating this book: 宮部みゆき is a pretty prolific mystery writer - and I’ve been wanting to read something by her for a while. I acquired this one used and it’s been sitting on my shelf since. At 665 pages according to amazon (my paperbook version ends at page 768 
) it’s a bit intimidating though! Reading together with a book club could be a great motivating force to get through it, and finish it. And have a monster of a book on our resumees! 
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Are you sure there’s an ebook? I can’t seem to find it.
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