妊娠カレンダー🍐🤰🏻 Book club ・(IBC current pick) Started Oct 19!

Written by 小川 洋子, this collection of three short stories won the 104th Akutagawa Prize in 1990

Join the Intermediate Book Club Here!
View this book on Natively!
View the nomination post here!
See the previous IBC book 変な家 here

Where to purchase

Physical : Amazon JP | Rakuten | Kinokuniya JP
Ebook: Amazon JP | Bookwalker | eBook Japan
Audiobook: Amazon Audible JP | Audible UK

IBC Schedule

Week Start Date End point (kindle) End page paperback End quote Page count
妊娠カレンダー
Week 0 (Preview) Oct 13 92 十二月三十日
Week 1 Oct 19 162 23 一月十三日 14
Week 2 Oct 26 324 39 三月十四日 16
Week 3 Nov 2 517 58 五月二十八日 19
Week 4 Nov 9 689 74 end of 妊娠カレンダー 16
ドミトリイ
Week 5 Nov 16 860 93 あっという間に五日が過ぎた 18
Week 6 Nov 23 1060 113 帰りが遅くなると寮に電話があったのだった。 20
Week 7 Nov 30 1281 134 蜜蜂の羽のようにいつまでも震えていた 21
Week 8 Dec 7 1420 148 end of ドミトリイ 14
夕暮れの給食室と雨のプール
Week 9 Dec 14
Week 10 Dec 21

IBC Primer pace schedule

If you’d like to try reading this book at a slightly slower (but hopefully speeding up pace), see this alternative schedule provided by @mitrac

Vocabulary

Google sheet (thanks @Phryne )

jpdb vocabulary list

Discussion Guidelines

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.

  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).

  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.

Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice

  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

Proper Nouns

Name Hiragana reading Notes Kindle location first mentioned
Main character
Another character
Another character

Membership

Will you be reading with us?
  • Yes
  • Yes, but I might start late
  • Maybe
  • No
0 voters
Which version will you be reading?
  • eBook
  • Paperback
0 voters

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to be notified when weekly threads get posted!

Blockquote

10 Likes

Generated a spreadsheet. Same disclaimers as last time :grin:

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I didn’t vote in the which version poll as I’ll be giving it a shot as purely audiobook :ear:

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That’s awesome!! Thanks a lot, @Phryne !! :nerd_face:
This will be truly helpful during our reading sessions!!

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“kindle page” doesn’t make sense as it depends on the chosen font size. It should be “kindle location” which is well defined by a multiple of the number of characters.

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Thanks. Fixed

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My used hardback copy of the book arrived!


I ordered it through Mercari (used stuff marketplace in Japan) through the proxy service Neokyo and I’m pleased with how well that went.

As for whether it was a good choice to go for the hardback (hoping for larger font), the font is so small, I can’t imaging the paperback has an even smaller font. Perhaps there’s just less white space in the paperback. I’ll try that next time.

This will be my first novel that isn’t a kid’s book, and I was planning on marking it up liberally. But will I really be able to deface these beautiful buttery smooth pages? :flushed:

Anyway, this is my first IBC and I’m excited to join you all!

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Welcome to IBC! This will be my second book along this club! :slight_smile: (The first being 変な家)

I bought the paperback version, and both books have about the same physical and font sizes.
妊娠カレンダー’s font is just a tad thinner, while keeping the same overall size.

img

I hope you have a great time with us! Looking forward to it!

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Here is a preliminary go at a schedule for the first story

The first story is about 670 kindle locations long
Based on our last couple of IBC clubs (where 200 locations/week was a comfortable pace), I’ve suggested four weeks for it - including a bit of a pace increase

The story is very easy to break up because of the calendar structure

Week 1
December 29th (location 19)

length 143#

Week 2
Jan 13th (8 weeks 1 day) (loc 162)

length 162#

Week 3
March 14th (16 weeks 5 days) (loc 324)

length 193#

Week 4
May 26th (27 weeks 3 days) (loc 517)

length 172#

The next two stories are

Dormitory - 736 locations

Diving Pool - 409 locations

Afterword - 20 locations

So, I’m guessing that we will have 4 weeks for story 2 and 2 weeks for story 3 and afterword

That will mean 10 weeks in total - finishing on 21st December. That should mean that the next club will start on 4th January @NicoleIsEnough

But we can always adjust the pace as we go.

How does that sound?

  • Sounds good to me!
  • I’m a speed demon, faster, faster, faster.
  • Can we go slower please?
  • I don’t know yet, let’s see how we go
  • I’m not planning to read the book, but I like to have a poll option
0 voters
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I’ll probably read slower than the club anyway though, so I don’t mind if the club goes faster or even faster than me, but I just wanted to mention the pace looks faster than what I was expecting for this club and my ambition to keep up.

For a 200 page book that’s 20 pages a week, which (excluding the last book with all the floor plans) is faster than the two clubs before that, which had most weeks closer to the IBC 15ish pages per week goal (セーラー服 had an overall average of 16 pages per week, 殺人犯に was almost 17).

It’s fine to go faster if that’s what most people want. So please don’t worry about this comment if most people like the proposed pace!

I’m new here so I wasn’t sure if I should comment if it’s unlikely for me to keep up. But equally, maybe there are other people new to the club who might appreciate thinking about it this way before voting on pace.

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I don’t have a physical copy, so it is hard to comment on page numbers. They always depend on size of font/spacing etc

But since the kindle locations correspond to characters, the 200 locations/week should correspond to the roughly the same pace as the last two clubs, and I think the first couple of weeks should be quite gentle. (The last couple of weeks of 変な家 have been significantly faster at around 250-260 locations/week).

But we’ll definitely be able to adjust as we go along if it is too fast

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Oh that’s super useful to know actually, I always wondered whether pages were consistent in size/ characters. In the hardback at least there is a lot of white space around the text (and it’s not far off the paperback page count) , so perhaps it’s less dense than previous picks.

Anyway thanks for letting me know that, maybe I still have a hope of keeping up :crossed_fingers::crossed_fingers:

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I voted I don’t know because the Kindle locations don’t mean anything to me :sweat_smile: if there are certain weeks where stories are finished that would be helpful as I’ll just join on those weeks having completed the story.

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The kindle locations don’t mean anything to me, either, but if you say the pace is the same or slower than the last couple of clubs, then I’m fine with it.

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I’ve put in the schedule for the first story.

If anyone has a physical version and wants to give me page numbers I can put them in.

Also @mitrac has suggested a schedule for those interested in reading along at a slower ramp up pace. The schedule is here

Is there anyone (apart from @mitrac) planning to read at the IBC primer pace? If so, I can put the slower schedule in the main post

  • Yes, I’d like read at primer pace (14-15 weeks)
  • No thanks, I’m going to read at the regular pace (10 weeks)
  • I’m planning to read at my own pace
  • I’m not planning to read the book, but I want to click something
0 voters
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I got my copy! For the regular pace:

Week 1: pgs 9-23
Week 2: pgs 23-39
Week 3: pgs 39-58
Week 4: pgs 58-74

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Is there a way to buy from ebook japan without a Japanese phone number?

I still haven’t found a way to buy an ebook. I don’t want to buy from BookWalker because I want a proper ebook that I can use outside of their app, I can’t get my credit card to work on amazon.co.jp and ebook japan demands a phone number to create an account.

I hate it when I try to buy something legally and it’s not complicated. Just let me give you my money already.

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Have you tried a different card?
I recently had a problem with my cc on Amazon.jp
But found that switching to a different card worked fine

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Not sure if that is an option you would consider, but the audiobook is available through the German audible. You could check if that’s the case with your regular amazon account as well.
(though I assume you want the ebook, which is not sold on other amazon pages smh. I really don’t understand the reason ebooks don’t get sold without region restrictions. It will never make sense to me)

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I buy all my novels as ebooks on Rakuten. Link for this one: https://books.rakuten.co.jp/rk/dbb39768cf3c47d5891526751552ccaa
Not needed: VPN to Japan, Japanese phone number, Japanese credit card.
Needed: Japanese postal address when signing up. I found a 7/11 somewhere in Aomori. Never had problems, books are delivered in my Kobo + Kobo desktop app I then use Calibre with a plugin to convert the files and make them to epub and read in a browser

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