It is a bit off putting that it’s that old (happy 90th birthday soon!), but I also don’t remember it being an issue 
happy to have you with us 
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The key is to not know Japanese well enough to find the old Japanese any more confusing than modern Japanese 
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Audio book is also free on kikubon!
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Nice thanks. Adding to the first post.
I’m also planning on looking at a schedule soon:tm:, probably will post something this weekend
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Alright, time to talk about the schedule!
Here’s how I looked at it:
This book has nice short chapters so we won’t need to be cutting chapters.
I don’t have a version with pages so I went with character count.
I used as a reference あなたも殺人になれる！, a previous IBC. We had read it in 16 weeks, average was 16 pages per week, around 4/5k char per week (total was 69.000 char).
This book is a bit longer, 91.000 char, so would make sense with 18 weeks.
Here is the book structure
| # | chapter name | length | week |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | はしがき | 1099 | 1 |
| 2 | 鉄の罠 | 2916 | |
| 3 | 人か魔か | 4504 | 2 |
| 4 | 魔法使い | 2033 | 3 |
| 5 | 池の中 | 2501 | |
| 6 | 樹上の怪人 | 1898 | 4 |
| 7 | 壮二君の行方 | 2252 | |
| 8 | 少年探偵 | 3319 | 5 |
| 9 | 仏像の奇蹟 | 3120 | |
| 10 | 陥穽 | 2848 | 6 |
| 11 | 七つ道具 | 2326 | |
| 12 | 伝書鳩 | 2684 | 7 |
| 13 | 奇妙な取引 | 1545 | |
| 14 | 小林少年の勝利 | 2221 | 8 |
| 15 | 恐ろしき挑戦状 | 3627 | |
| 16 | 美術城 | 3156 | 9 |
| 17 | 名探偵明智小五郎 | 1692 | |
| 18 | 不安の一夜 | 3129 | 10 |
| 19 | 悪魔の智恵 | 3533 | |
| 20 | 巨人と怪人 | 4884 | 11 |
| 21 | トランクとエレベーター | 5699 | 12 |
| 22 | 二十面相の逮捕 | 2820 | 13 |
| 23 | 『わしが本物じゃ。』 | 2195 | |
| 24 | 二十面相の新弟子 | 3586 | 14 |
| 25 | 名探偵の危急 | 2146 | 15 |
| 26 | 怪盗の巣窟 | 3290 | |
| 27 | 少年探偵団 | 2637 | 16 |
| 28 | 午後四時 | 2713 | |
| 29 | 名探偵の狼藉 | 2641 | 17 |
| 30 | 種明し | 3202 | |
| 31 | 怪盗捕縛 | 5158 | 18 |
And here is the proposed schedule:
| week | date | chapters | length in char |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 Jan | 1+2 | 4015 |
| 2 | 10 Jan | 3 | 4504 |
| 3 | 17 Jan | 4+5 | 4534 |
| 4 | 24 Jan | 6+7 | 4150 |
| 5 | 31 Jan | 8+9 | 6439 |
| 6 | 7 Feb | 10+11 | 5174 |
| 7 | 14 Feb | 12+13 | 4229 |
| 8 | 21 Feb | 14+15 | 5848 |
| 9 | 28 Feb | 16+17 | 4848 |
| 10 | 7 Mar | 18+19 | 6662 |
| 11 | 14 Mar | 20 | 4884 |
| 12 | 21 Mar | 21 | 5699 |
| 13 | 28 Mar | 22+23 | 5015 |
| 14 | 4 Apr | 24 | 3586 |
| 15 | 11 Apr | 25+26 | 5436 |
| 16 | 18 Apr | 27+28 | 5350 |
| 17 | 25 Apr | 29+30 | 5843 |
| 18 | 2 May | 31 | 5158 |
What do you think?
- Schedule approved
- I have some comments
0
voters
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I will read the book on kindle, so I converted the schedule into kindle locations.
The average number of locations per week is 143, compared to
154 for あなたも殺人犯になれる！
171 for お探し物は図書室まで
189 for スリ
So the schedule looks good.
BTW: The audio playlist has divided the book into 15 episodes. I didn’t check how they match with the chapters - did you?
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Thanks for checking!
No I haven’t checked out the playlist. That could be a way to divide it too, it does say in the description which chapters she reads.
It’s a bit faster, 15 weeks, and video length vary from 16 min to 36 minutes.
Please vote again anonymous poll this time
- I prefer the 18 week schedule but I’m OK with 15
- I prefer the 18 week schedule, the 15 week schedule is too fast for me
- I prefer the 15 week schedule
- No opinion / other
0
voters
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Probably my own fault because of the way I formulated the poll, but now I’m not sure how to read the result 
More people would prefer to keep the 18 week schedule than the 15 week schedule, but all those people would be OK with 15 weeks → so we go for the 15 week schedule?
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I gotchu:
Did Akashelia interpret the poll correctly?
- Yes
- No
- Maybe
- I don’t think she did but I’m ok with the results
- I think she did but I’m not ok with the results
0
voters
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No one said 15 weeks is too fast, so I think we’re safe for that.
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Tbh, I initially voted yes, but saw that everyone else had voted maybe, so even I started second guessing myself and changed my vote 
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What does the schedule look like as 15 weeks?
@2000kanji I am also reading on kindle!
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Here is the 15 week schedule (aligned with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWafsCp4weM&list=PLnvy91wucEcl_6n1AZq0ultWJOlos0OOg )
I wrote a “diff” where the weeks are different from the 18 week schedule.
Week 9 and 11 in particular are longer than what we had in the other schedule, otherwise it’s pretty similar.
| week | date | chapters | length in char | different? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 Jan | 1+2 | 4015 | |
| 2 | 10 Jan | 3+4 | 6537 | diff |
| 3 | 17 Jan | 5+6+7 | 6651 | diff |
| 4 | 24 Jan | 8+9 | 6439 | |
| 5 | 31 Jan | 10+11 | 5174 | |
| 6 | 7 Feb | 12+13+14 | 6450 | diff |
| 7 | 14 Feb | 15+16 | 6783 | diff |
| 8 | 21 Feb | 17+18 | 4821 | diff |
| 9 | 28 Feb | 19+20 | 8417 | diff |
| 10 | 7 Mar | 21 | 5699 | |
| 11 | 14 Mar | 22+23+24 | 8601 | diff |
| 12 | 21 Mar | 25+26 | 5436 | |
| 13 | 28 Mar | 27+28 | 5350 | |
| 14 | 4 Apr | 29+30 | 5843 | |
| 15 | 11 Apr | 31 | 5158 |
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I can imagine you feel a bit like you’re shouting into the void (because the maybes poll was genuinely funny I just piled on ) so I’ll say what my votes really mean
What was impressive about the 18 week schedule was how even the character count was across the whole club while keeping chapter related threads, hence my preference. Also, I don’t know how active first time clubbers are in these pre-emptive polls, so I wanted to give a slight preference to something more doable for those people who might not be voting but still attempt to join for their first IBC.
I personally didn’t see a reason to sync the reading schedule to the youtube recordings since a) I wouldn’t listen to it all at once anyways and b) someone posted a link to a free audiobook that goes by chapter that I’d rather use and that fits with either schedule. So for all that, the 15 week schedule to me is essentially just a vote to run the club a bit faster.
It doesn’t look like you’ll get a mutiny either way, and my final observation is that it will be the minority of people who join and stick exactly to the schedule. A lot will zoom forward and finish it, and another lot will fall off due to irl events etc. Perhaps that is another reason there aren’t hugely passionate thoughts on this!
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I did not vote but I want to try out this book as the first IBC book! So personally I would prefer the 18 weeks schedule. However if the majority wants the 15 then ofc pick that
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@Akashelia I am sorry to have started this discussion about the schedule by mentioning the partitioning of the youtube file. I didn’t mean to question your schedule and I’m fine with either of the proposed schedules.
@Jalanib Here is the 15-week schedule in kindle locations:
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My opinion on schedule lengths is that for entry-level book clubs, it’s good to go with the longer schedule so beginner readers don’t feel left behind. Stronger readers will probably read ahead anyways, so I think it’s better to weight the schedule for the benefit of first-time novel readers!
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What irritates me a bit is that the 15-week schedule is rather uneven, alternating between 5k and 8k weeks (which is quite a significant difference). Is there a way to even this out a little bit? If not, maybe the 18-week schedule is more welcoming to learners who are not as advanced?
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Counterpoint: I prefer uneven weeks if it means that we land on chapter boundaries…
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