I’ll try to participate on this one!
Is there any recommended level on WK/grammar points to know beforehand? Or we’re supposed to just learn them as they appear? Asking from the point of view of a 100% absolute complete beginner…
I tried ordering the physical copy, but it’s too expensive to ship from overseas, and the online stores here apparently don’t have it. Anybody in Brazil had any luck? Asking on a whim… If anything, I’ll get the one from ebookjapan and follow along.
What I’ve seen so far is very casual speech and I’m every chapter there is a “pun” where the polar bear misinterprets and does like 3 sings that sound similar
I ordered it with a bunch of other stuff from the japanese amazon to make the overseas shipping cheaper per item.
I did saw the older version of the book on the us amazon marketplace for a lot cheaper $7,50 + $4 shipping. Here . But usually that takes a while to come.
New member here. Will do my best to keep up 
(love the anime, so that’s really motivating)
Anything I should do/know about the way this is going to work? (Besides getting the books/things that were mentioned in previous posts on here)
I saw that one, but by the time that it arrives here the club will be ending already 
I might order it anyways if I don’t find an alternative, though, thanks.
I was expecting one of the Liberdade bookstores to have it, but nothing on the websites that I know. It’d be much cheaper and convenient to get the ebook, but not being able to read on a Kindle is also a bummer…
@emucat I hope I’ll be ok with some of the first chapters of Tae-Kim and level 10~12 or so, then 
. Thanks!
I just ordered the book from Amazon.ca, so we’ll see if it gets here in time! I guess in the meantime I should learn some grammar haha…
My advice for absolute beginners who have never read a book in Japanese (from another absolute beginner who has not done so) is to spend the next month cramming on WaniKani to get as far as you can between now and then (without piling up items due to poor accuracy), and simultaneously cram the heck out of Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese grammar. Good crash course in grammar that you could probably get through in a month if you pace yourself. Sure you won’t remember everything, but you’ll have been exposed to it, and it might lead to some “aha!” moments later on when you are exposed to it in the book.
At least this is my strategy. If that fails, just come and ask a ton of questions on the book club. 
We’re in this together.
Good thing I own the second book too. Thanks for letting us know!
Also, there are five volumes in the old printing, right?
Ok, I’m going to give it a go.
This is what I ended up doing as well.
Correct. And 4 in the new
Baller. Just decided on buying the rest.
Old version obviously, cuz I’m not about that new print life
I love, that so many users plan to participate. This shows, that an absolut beginner book club was needed.
I planned to help collecting vocab for the doc file, sadly my laptop just died yesterday, so I will start collecting vocab this weekend. Can‘t fix it before the weekend, and I don‘t know if it is possible to edit with ios.
It is. But everything is a bit more annoying on mobile…
I was wondering btw: what are the guidelines about which words are added to the Google Doc?
None of the words I added were new to me but since this is an Absolute Beginner book club I thought I’d rather add too much than too little. I basically added everything since I was not sure where to draw the line.
Planning is one thing, real life is another. In the previous two absolute beginner bookclubs (one still running now) hundreds sign up, even buy the book, but by the end it is always just a small handful of people left. My admiration is for that tiny percentage who stick it out to the end, while understanding all the many reasons why most people don’t.
You can usually tell which words are necessary.
Like, most vocab, but if you see 見る or 食べる, you’re usually not adding those.
You can also adapt based on the first chapter after people have read it. 
Looking forward to making this the first Japanese book I read that is not a baby board book!!
I’m also planning on joining in for the first time.
My Japanese is awful so I hope I can do it D:
The books should be redelivered today so I’m excited.
I still feel guilty for not sticking with なぜ？どうして？all the way through 
Hopefully by March things will have settled down. I really do want to see one of these through to the end.