I have finally made a proper start on reading, and hopefully will have caught up in time to join in to discussion in the third week. Reading the comments in this thread has really helped me to read the book without having to stop to check too many words.
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Just read the chapter! Now I can go back and read the 80 other messages in this thread 
I’m kinda surprised there’s already such heavy hinting that キノ is a woman 
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You… you don’t tell me what to do! 
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Haha gotta love the English language 
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Oh I should actually do that too
looks at genuinely pretty interesting キノの旅 in Japanese
looks at video games
Eeeehhhh
Thestruggleisreal
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I’m having the opposite problem, there’s a lot of games I still have to play and I just read all my free time away.
At least we can change when we get bored of one thing 
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Nyeah I go through phases. I’m in a very I-don’t-want-to-read phase right now, unfortunately.
Or, I was. I think that’s actually passed, but in the meantime I got addicted to a game, so oops? 
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There’s always that one game.
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This is actually the first novel (light or otherwise) that I’ve read in Japanese, so I don’t know if it is common. I can’t think of any instances where I’ve noticed it in manga or other material, but it seems like kanji would make it easy to have ambiguous meanings on purpose. I’m also not confident that I could accurately determine if the author meant for something to be ambiguous.
And on that note, I’m really glad I happened upon the book clubs here! I’ve been meaning to read a novel in Japanese, so this is excellent motivation. 
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Am I the only person who read this, then heard it in David Attenborough’s voice?
According to my furigana edition - it’s じかに
If you give me the sentence, I can tell you what is written in the furigana edition.
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All the sentences with 止める.
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I love that you think I’m so good at reading Japanese that I can just spot them so easily. 
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The sentence is 毒を矯める、止めるって意味だよ。
That’s probably the only one I read as とどめる since the dict entry made it seem like that’s more in the direction of putting a stop to something, holding something back/in place/ limiting it.
やめる I think has the connotation of actively quitting something, like an activity.
とめる I think is the most general of these?
I think either とめる or とどめる is more fitting than やめる here. Looking forward to the official statement! 
I read that as とめる. I think in that particular case it fits this meaning best:
継続しているものを続かなくさせる。とだえさせる。
I never read 止める as とどめる, that’s how I usually read 留める. I sometimes read it as やめる, but only when it’s like in the prologue:
「止めるのは、いつだってできる。だから、続けようと思う」
Disclaimer: that’s just how I do it, and I have no idea how valid my way of doing things is.
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The book says とめる here, and (attn: @seanblue) I found another instance later on, when Kino is about to depart and then stops Hermes’ engine when the man asks another question. That is also given as とめる.
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とどめる is usually written as 留める, then, and 止める would be a bit unusual or rarer at least? That’s good to know, thanks!
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At least that’s what I always assumed to be true. 留める can also be read とめる, but I don’t know how common that would be either.
Just two random remarks about this week’s reading:
庭で取れた草
I found it very interesting to see that Japanese apparently uses 取る to indicate the growing/raising of plants, as this is the same as in German (“ziehen”).
キノはお茶の香りをかいだ。
Anybody else had this huge flashback? I was like “Yeah, and next thing we learn is that she started time travels.” 
Heck, I did not even have to think about かいだ for a second because we discussed this so intensely for 時をかける少女。
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I have two lingering questions about the end of chapter 1.
End of page 43
モトラドが走り去っていくのを見ながら、男は思った。
I don’t see anything preceding or following this sentence indicating what he thought. So what is the 思った referring to? I feel like I’m missing something that should be obvious.
Middle of page 44
あの男の人と結婚するんじゃないかと、端で見ていてハラハラだったよ。
そんなことはないよ
ならいいけど
Hermes was worried that Kino would marry that guy? Something along those lines? The じゃないか is throwing me off a bit.
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