🕵️‍♀️ 推理小説読書会 📚 Mystery Novel Book Club 👮‍♂️ Preparing to read 赤ずきん、旅の途中で死体と出会う!

Oh, BP! Somehow I didn’t expect you to be on Natively forums! Welcome aboard, thanks for the explanation! I didn’t even see this question.

No, 館 (read やかた on its own, かん as a suffix) just means “house” or “manor”. All the books in the series are called 館の殺人, with 館 meaning “the House”. (So first was 十角館の殺人, the Decagon House Murders, the second book is 水車館の殺人, the Mill House Murders (or, literally, the Waterwheel House Murders), the third book is 迷路館の殺人, the Labyrinth House Murders, etc.). The houses/books are all over Japan, although as far as I’ve seen the specific region hasn’t had any impact. The crazy houses are the star of the show!

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I see. I misunderstood your previous comment on 館.

Huh. Interesting way to tie the books together. I figured they wouldn’t be true sequels or anything, but I am shocked they followed 島田. Dude was suspicious as all get-out in Decagon.

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I mean once you know he’s a detective a lot of his suspicious behavior seems less sus, at least it felt that way to me. Before it was like “why do you care so much about this case, random dude?”

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Oh, I’m a big fan of Ho-Ling’s blog! That’s cool that you know him :smile:

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Thank you! I used the term “friend”, but I imagine Ho-Ling probably just thinks of me as “that annoying fangirl who apologizes for breathing within proximity of his blog”! It’s a little embarrassing, actually, but I’m a bit intimidated by him, even though he’s incredibly down-to-Earth. He’s one of the few blogs who guided my reading when I first started reading mysteries, so sometimes it’s still so hard to keep in mind that nowadays I just exist in the same circle as people I looked and look up to as experts. It’s surreal, and I still apologize for commenting on their blogs even though presumably they want people to comment! That’s what I get for putting people on pedestals, I guess, I become an embarrassing mess of a fangirl to, in retrospect, ordinary people who just like reading mysteries a lot!

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By the way, I wanted to apologize for my delayed joining of the Reading Club reading this session! I’m in the middle of reading 一寸法師の不在証明 from 「むかしむかしあるところに、死体がありました」, a collection of fairplay mystery stories that twist plots from Japanese folklore. I’m going to finish it before I jump into the Reading Club sessions, but since my Japanese reading is very slow at the moment I’ll probably have to jump into the next book we read instead!

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Oh gosh, no worries. No one is required to join on every book! Read the ones which interest you and which fit your reading level and schedule.

Also did you know the 赤ずきんちゃん book the むかしむかし series is getting a Netflix adaptation? Frustratingly few details out so far though. It does however already have an audiobook released.

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Threads also always remain open, so if you ever want to go back to an older book club and leave comments/ask questions, you’re more than welcome to!

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Just came across a book that sounds interesting and I would like to put forward for a future book club contender:

七回死んだ男

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If you could make an official nomination post (template in top post) I’ll add it to the list for the next vote :slight_smile:

Also I actually own this book already - picked it up at a used book store a few months back!

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Book: 七回死んだ男 | L30??
Is there an ebook available?: yes

Summary - Japanese

高校生の久太郎は、同じ1日が繰り返し訪れる「反復落とし穴」に嵌まる特異体質を持つ。資産家の祖父は新年会で後継者を決めると言い出し、親族が揉めに揉める中、何者かに殺害されてしまう。祖父を救うため久太郎はあらゆる手を尽くすが……

――鮮やかな結末で読書界を驚愕させたSF本格ミステリの金字塔!

Summary - English

High school student Kyutaro has a peculiar constitution that causes him to fall into a ‘repetitive pitfall’, where the same day comes and goes over and over again. His grandfather, a wealthy man, announces at a New Year’s party that he will decide who will succeed him, and while the relatives are struggling, someone murders him. Kyutaro does everything he can to save his grandfather, but …

–A gold standard of sci-fi real mystery with a brilliant ending that astonished the reading world!

Why are you nominating this book: I heard it is quite comical and the premise sounds interesting. (and I already own the ebook. :face_with_peeking_eye:)

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Book doesn’t meet genre requirements. Nomination withdrawn.
(Just leaving the posting here, otherwise the next few replies don’t make any sense :rofl:)

Book: アイネクライネナハトムジーク | L30??

Details

Is there an ebook available?: yes

Summary - Japanese

妻に出て行かれたサラリーマン、声しか知らない相手に恋する美容師、元いじめっ子と再会してしまったOL……。人生は、いつも楽しいことばかりじゃない。でも、運転免許センターで、リビングで、駐輪場で、奇跡は起こる。情けなくも愛おしい登場人物たちが仕掛ける、不器用な駆け引きの数々。明日がきっと楽しくなる、魔法のような連作短編集。

Summary - English

A businessman whose wife has left him, a hairdresser who is in love with someone she only knows by voice, and an office worker who has been reunited with a former bully … Life isn’t always fun. But miracles happen at the driver’s license center, in the living room, and on the bicycle parking lot. The clumsy games played by the pathetic but lovable characters. A magical series of short stories that will surely make tomorrow fun.

Why are you nominating this book: The title is German (a classical piece by Mozart) and my brain just went: “Oh! Wanna read!” I am not sure this fits the genre. The summary reads more like slice of life. :thinking: I went purely by the author who is known for mystery novels. :sweat_smile:

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I did some googling and it doesn’t seem to be a mystery. In fact there is an Amazon review that says: 泥棒も死体も人殺しもカカシも出てこない6作品が収められた短編集 :joy: So I guess this is his deviation from the craft. The author’s most famous work seems to be 死神の精度 | L30 though which is a mystery though and looks quite good.

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By the way, we already have another nomination by this author: グラスホッパー | L35
He’s also the one who wrote マリアビートル, recently made into a Hollywood movie with the name Bullet Train.

I’ve had my eye on アヒルと鴨のコインロッカー | L30?? in the past, but some vague references of animal cruelty in some reviews turned me off.

@Biblio The Intermediate Book Club over at Wanikani is currently looking for nominations. Maybe it would be a better fit there?

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I am not on Wanikani, but thanks for the info. :slight_smile:

Thanks for checking. I withdraw the nomination - I edited my original post to reflect that, so there is no confusion. :slight_smile:

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I own the book but did not read it yet (mainly because my German self was intrigued by the title, just like OP ^^) so all I can say is that it’s a short story collection. I searched for 殺 and 犯 and it appeared a few times but I was not sure whether it was meant in the direct sense or in a figurative sense (did not want to spoil myself too much there).

Unfortunately it’s a tad long for the Intermediate Club, Amazon says the Bunko version has 341 pages. (I mean, technically you can still nominate it - the club’s limit is at 350 pages - but with the club’s reading speed of ~15 pages per week it will just take a long time :sweat_smile: and I would actually like to lower the limit to ~300 pages, tbh…)

So in my opinion your best bet would be the https://community.wanikani.com/t/x/44685 which is currently voting, so it will probably be ~3 months until the next round (depending on what gets picked currently).

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There’s also always the option of doing a solo “I’m gonna read this and I want company!” post :joy: I created one for 半落ち over on WK (don’t need to use WK to use the forums btw - I don’t use the main service at all) and @Belerith and I are going to be spinning up one in February for レベル7 (it’s a bad nomination for a book club because it’s ~600 pages and only available as a physical book). I also previously joined one for 糞尿譚…which I still haven’t finished :sweat:

Completely unrelated I noticed today that the author of 体育館の殺人 (current club pick) is the author of 2 other nominated books!

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