キッチン Home Thread (Intermediate Book Club)

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Join the Intermediate Book Club here!

Welcome to キッチン

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Where to buy

Amazon JP | CDJapan | eBookJapan | Bookwalker

Note: There are two different versions available: The Kadokawa Bunko edition (beige-coloured with bananas), 200 pages, published in 1998, and the Shinchou Bunko edition (grey with tulips), 197 pages, published in 2002.
I compared the first few paragraphs of both and could not find any differences text-wise, but they might differ wrt. page breaks. This will be pointed out in the reading schedule.

Discussion Threads

We will start reading on October 5th, 2019.

Read-along Sessions

Come and read from the previous week’s section, join in the chat about this book (also the previous book, possible future books, WK reviews, all things Japan-related, what else you did on the weekend, etc) or just lurk and listen. Readers of all speeds and abilities welcome - we are here to help each other out. Reading sessions will be held every Sunday at 9:30pm JST.

Starting date: One week after we started reading the book, i.e. October 13th.

Next session (in your timezone): Sunday, December 29, 2019 12:30 PM TZ

Reading Schedule

Kitchen & Moonlight Shadow

“Kitchen” is the main story of the book. It is split into two parts. The book contains a second (totally unrelated) story called “Moonlight Shadow” which we will also read together in weeks 11 - 13.

Thanks to @catbus and @belerith for the breakdown:

Week Start Date End Page End Percentage End Phrase Page Count
Week 1 Oct 5th 18 7% それほど驚いた出会いだったのだ。 12
Week 2 Oct 12th 32 14% 神に心から感謝していた。 13
Week 3 Oct 19th 43 19% 出なくては。 12
Week 4 Oct 26th 57 26% 素足がふるえた。 13
Week 5 Nov 2nd 73 33% 「お電話ありがとう。」と言った。 14
Week 6 Nov 9th 86 40% 心に満ちてしまう。 12.5
Week 7 Nov 16th 101* 48% いやな悲しさでいっぱいになっていった。 15
Week 8 Nov 23rd 115* 55% きしめんを食べながら私は切り出した。 14.5
Week 9 Nov 30th 131 63% 私は上っていった。 15
Week 10 Dec 7th 145 70% 説明をはじめた。 14
Week 11 Dec 14th 160 79% スカートのすそをおぼえている。 16
Week 12 Dec 21st 177 87% あんまりだと思う。 16
Week 13 Dec 28th 193 96% The End 17

*break in middle of conversation

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun!

Member List

Set your participation status here.

Additional Resources - Vocabulary lists

FloFlo Word List (Requires free account)

Proper Noun Readings

Name Reading Notes Proof
桜井 さくらい mrahhal said so
田辺 雄一 たなべ ゆういち mrahhal said so
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Are you planning to read キッチン with the book club?

  • Yes
  • Yes, but I might start late
  • Not sure
  • No

0 voters

If so, which version will you be reading?

  • eBook
  • Paperback

0 voters

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When would you prefer to start reading キッチン?

  • September 28th (No delay)
  • October 5th (1 week delay)
  • Something else (please explain)
  • I don’t care

0 voters

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By the way, does anybody own or plan to buy the physical book? It might be easier to determine the weekly breakdown based on that. So if somebody could be so kind and look into this at some point, I’d be very grateful!
My suggestion would be to go with the standard 15 pages per week, perhaps with a short ramp-up phase if it makes sense (from looking at the book’s contents and section breaks).

2 Likes
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I did a breakdown with a lower number of pages in the first half. There are two slightly awkward page breaks in the middle of conversations, but there weren’t many good options for where to end those weeks without stretching other weeks more than 16 pages. For each break, I did a rough page count estimate for actual pages of text (not including chapter titles or blank pages).

Possible schedule:

End page – # pages – last line/phrase
18 – 12 pages – それほど驚いた出会いだったのだ。
32 – 13 pages – 神に心から感謝していた。
43 – 12 pages – 出なくては。
57 – 13 pages – 素足がふるえた。
73 – 14 pages – 「お電話ありがとう。」と言った。
86 – 12.5 pages – 心に満ちてしまう。
101 – 15 pages – いやな悲しさでいっぱいになっていった。(middle of conversation)
115 – 14.5 pages – きしめんを食べながら私は切り出した。(middle of conversation)
131 – 15 pages – 私は上っていった。
145 – 14 pages – 説明をはじめた。

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Thank you very much :slight_smile: I like the breakdown! And for the conversations, I think that’s just unavoidable from time to time.

For the start of reading the book, as some people would like to have a one-week gap, I’m leaning towards starting on the later date (i.e. Oct 5th). So those who need the break can have it, and the others can cram in some other reading in the meantime :upside_down_face:

Does this sound ok for everybody? (breakdown and starting date)

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Sounds perfect to me! :+1:

Still need to organize the ebook, too. xD

(:cry:)

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I added the ebook percentages and formatted it. If someone has the kindle pages, feel free to post them!

Also, if someone has a different edition and notices any differences in page numbers, please post the pages numbers for your version so I can add both to this table.


Week|Start Date|End Page|End Percentage|End Phrase|Pages|
| — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Week 1|Oct 5th|18|7%|それほど驚いた出会いだったのだ。|12|
Week 2|Oct 12th|32|14%|神に心から感謝していた。|13|
Week 3|Oct 19th|43|19%|出なくては。|12|
Week 4|Oct 26th|57|26%|素足がふるえた。|13|
Week 5|Nov 2nd|73|33%|「お電話ありがとう。」と言った。|14|
Week 6|Nov 9th|86|40%|心に満ちてしまう。|12.5|
Week 7|Nov 16th|101*|48%|いやな悲しさでいっぱいになっていった。|15|
Week 8|Nov 23rd|115*|55%|きしめんを食べながら私は切り出した。|14.5|
Week 9|Nov 30th|131|63%|私は上っていった。|15|
Week 10|Dec 7th|145|70%|説明をはじめた。|14|
*break in middle of conversation

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Thank you, I added it to the first post.

Oh btw @catbus and @myria, which book version did you use?
(There are the Kadokawa Bunko edition (beige-coloured with bananas) and the Shinchou Bunko edition (grey with tulips) and I’m still wondering what might be the difference.)

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The ebook is the gray, Shinchou Bunko one from 2002.

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Ah, that’s a good point. I have the beige banana edition.

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I have an older hardback version with tulips and different page numbers to what Myria listed above…

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I didn’t realize キッチン was so short. We’ll have the vote for the next book before we are done with Haruhi… Amazing.

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That’s so strange. I don’t really follow the book clubs but I literally just read Kitchen after a friend lend it to me. I hope you all enjoy it, it was really good.

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Why don’t we read this book to the end? Kitchen + Moonlight Shadow or whatever starts after page 145 (I don’t have the book yet)?

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I actually have an older version, shincho bunko 1988 print with a red cover, that I picked up at Bookoff for 100 yen. The page numbers are slightly different but I might end up being the only one with this version. The book is in good condition too so I had no idea it was over 30 years old until I checked just now.

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I was actually wondering as well whether we should read the book to the end. Moonlight Shadow is a completely different story, though. It would be good for another 4-5 weeks, I guess? Please tell me what you think:

  • Decide now: We will read Moonlight Shadow as well with the book club
  • Decide now: We will not read Moonlight Shadow with the book club
  • Decide later: Whether to read Moonlight Shadow or not (but vote for the next book before that decision)
  • I don’t care whether we read it together or not
  • Something else (please explain)

0 voters

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The real question is, does every version have Moonlight Shadow or will it end up like 時をかける少女 where the different versions had different secondary stories.

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Hm, that’s a very good thought…

I checked the Kadokawa edition (beige with bananas) on Amazon and it has Moonlight Shadow in it.

I also checked the grey with tulips version that’s available on Bookwalker (but it says the publisher is Gentosha? this is really getting confusing…) and it also has Moonlight Shadow in it.

Also, the wikipedia page for Kitchen somewhat promisingly states “Most editions also include a novella entitled Moonlight Shadow”…

So let’s put this the other way round: Does anybody have a book that does not have Moonlight Shadow in it?

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So, my copy has Moonlight Shadow, and it has Kitchin broken up into two parts, キッチン and 満月. Is that the same for everyone? My page numbers are different so it’s hard to compare, but it seems strange that the last line of Kitchin is not showing up as an obvious break. (Maybe it’s just too soon after the previous break).