That’s right, and the text density increases towards the end of the first chapter, so the ten pages in week 3 will have a bit more to read than the ten pages in week 1.
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I’m in too! I tried before to follow along with Chi’s Sweet Home, but it was too much effort. Now I feel I understood the sample pages much better, so I’ll give it another go 
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I used tenso.com to create a Japanese address (this is free), then I used that address to create an amazon.co.jp account (same European credit card that I use everywhere) and then I send the ebooks to my ‘kindle for pc’ app.
I don’t have an actual kindle, I’m a kobo/epub guy, but I found it very frustrating and probably impossible to try and buy Japanese stuff from rakuten…
Manga is slow reading/dictionary work/searching for me anyway, so for now I’m happy with the fact that my Japanese ebooks are only on my laptop in the kindle app.
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I definitely don’t want to push you into something you aren’t comfortable with, but I think you could probably read aloud as long as you know the kana. When I was learning English as a child sometimes my teachers would have the class all take turns reading a short piece out loud. If you didn’t know what something was you would just ‘sound it out’ using the individual letters. I use this technique when I’m reading Japanese aloud (to myself). Thankfully with Japanese you don’t have quite so many letters changing sounds based on their usage! I am also quite new at reading aloud so this ‘sounding it out’ technique is probably all I would be doing in the reading group. I know it may seem a little embarrassing to jump in and try something that you are not good at, but it’s the absolute beginner book club so we’re all in the same boat
If you want to be conversational in Japanese I’d really recommend this even more. I’m not sure if you have practiced articulating Japanese but it takes some experience to get it right. You can get all of your dumb mistakes out of the way in a supportive setting Talking like a manga character is not ideal long-term, but if it gets your comfortable with speaking simple phrases out loud it will go a long way. Japanese people will understand that you are learning and won’t hold it against you if make some mistakes or speak casually. If you’re not going on a business trip casual Japanese is probably fine for the beginner. (Disclaimer: I’ve never been to Japan but I hear that Japanese people appreciate any level of effort in trying to speak Japanese and will be willing to meet you halfway with their terrible English if you have a passable level of Japanese. You will get a pass on some of the social nuance because you are a foreign learner of the language).
If we end up doing the reading group idea (and I would really like to) it will of course be open to people who just want to listen. But I will warn you that I’m going to encourage everyone to step outside of their comfort zone and try reading a sentence or two aloud.
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I would be nervous to read too much as well if we did this so you’re not alone haha
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Yes…
…You are brilliant Micki! Thank you!
(Plus… we need to change the thread title!)
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I was thinking that maybe in the first session we could all read one sentence and acknowledge that we are all equally bad. Because seriously this is the absolute beginner book club, we are bad at reading.
Maybe we could all pick one sentence and practice it, so you don’t have to be ‘on the spot’.
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I’m in! Happy to have another Absolute Beginner after なぜ？ ends. 
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I have my copy of the book and I am ready to go! ٩( ‘ω’ )و
P.S. hello everyone! I look forward to getting to know you!
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The e-book version at bookwalker costs only JPY 581 (less than 6 € or US$) so this should be affordable for everyone.
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Also, at least some (perhaps all) libraries will order books in languages other than english. I would actually be interested to know if anyone has tried this! I have purchased some books in Japanese form library discard sales, but I can’t remember looking through the LOTE section myself 
Wow I cant believe it’s almost August already! I keep thinking this book club is a ways off but it really isnt!
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My first book club book!
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Well, “almost” relative to, like, January. When you’re taking it one month at a time, we’ve still barely started July. 
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True but still time has flown by for me lol
Please tell me how you do it, because for the rest of the world, January was at least two years ago.
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when every day is the same it all just blends together 
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Welcome to the WK forums…
…and welcome to the best place on the WK forums! 
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Hey, first of all, thanks to all of you who are organizing this! It is very nice of you.
If I understand correctly, we will only be reading Vol. 1?
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That’s right, unless, at the end of this first volume, enough people decide they want to keep going and create a spin-off bookclub for the series. But that’s definitely not something that can be decided now.
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