授乳 🤱 Book Club

Japanese Language Reading
#1

Welcome to the 授乳 Book Club!

7168UqAIjgL
7168UqAIjgL920×1282 212 KB

This is part of the Sayaka Murata Book Club.

Where to purchase

Digital: Amazon · Bookwalker · Kobo
Physical: Amazon · CDJapan

Schedule

Week Start Story End page Kindle loc End phrase Page count
1 14 Aug 授乳 17 101 部屋を出ていった。 9
2 21 Aug 授乳 28 216 という気がする。 11
3 28 Aug 授乳 39 330 泡立て始めた。 11
4 4 Sep 授乳 52 472 end of story 13
5 11 Sep コイビト 67 598 ように思えてくる。 12
6 18 Sep コイビト 79 723 放っておけなかった。 12
7 25 Sep コイビト 92 864 理想の形で、美しく。 13
8 2 Oct コイビト 105 982 不可能なのだと感じた。 13
9 9 Oct コイビト 121 1164 end of story 16
10 16 Oct 御伽の部屋 142 1356 中に踏み込んだ。 18
11 23 Oct 御伽の部屋 159 1543 紅茶をすすっている。 17
12 30 Oct 御伽の部屋 176 1731 特に何も言ってこなかった。 17
13 6 Nov 御伽の部屋 192 1896 のがれようと走り続けた。 16
14 13 Nov 御伽の部屋 210 2096 また聞こえ始める。 18
15 20 Nov 御伽の部屋 227 2273 end of story 17

Vocabulary

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Membership

Are you reading with us?
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0 voters

6 Likes
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#2

Let’s have some polls!

Oops, should’ve made them multiple option!

Please note that I have not had a chance to chop the stories into weekly portions yet, so I don’t quite know yet what would make most sense, but it’d be good to know what side to err on :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#3

Maybe you can see better what the participants’ common middle ground is if you turn the polls into multi-option ones? Then you can see what the majority would be ok with and not only what they favor.

2 Likes
#4

An excellent idea!

When do we start reading?
  • 7 August (straight after 殺人出産)
  • 14 August (one week break)
  • 21 August (two week break)
  • Other (please comment)

0 voters

How fast are we reading?
  • 15 pages a week (16 weeks)
  • 17-18 pages a week (14 weeks)
  • 20 pages a week (12 weeks)
  • Faster still
  • Slower still

0 voters

1 Like
#5

Is it too late to add a “maybe”, or an “I’m trying to manage my commitments so I’ll say no now but I’m going to buy the book and most likely get sucked into the story and spend my entire weekends reading along anyway” option in the participation poll?

5 Likes
#6

Ohh, I didn’t see the thread was already up, I’m excited :grin:

1 Like
#7

So there’s complete consensus on the starting date: 14 August is acceptable to everyone who voted.

The reading speed is a bit trickier. I think I will have a look at the book and see what makes sense in terms of natural stopping points and let the chips fall where they may. And maybe in the meantime there will be a tiebreaker :upside_down_face:

3 Likes
#8

I had a look at the novel and it seems like there might be more text per page than in コンビニ人間 or 殺人出産.

授乳 ➝ 105k characters per 240 pages ➝ 437,5 characters per page.
殺人出産 ➝ 75k characters per 208 pages ➝ 360,5 characters per page.
コンビニ人間 ➝ 68k characters per 168 pages ➝ 405 characters per page.

So even if we stick to reading ~15 pages a week, that would be ~6500 characters a week, compared to the ~5000 characters a week we currently read (30% faster).

Another sticking point is the fact that we’re dealing with three separate stories and we’d prefer to keep them neatly separated in the discussion threads. So my proposal is as follows:

授乳 ➝ 22k characters ➝ 4 weeks ➝ 5500 chars a week
コイビト ➝ 32k characters ➝ 5 weeks ➝ 6400 chars a week
御伽の部屋 ➝ 52k characters ➝ 8 weeks ➝ 6500 chars a week

This makes for a 17 week schedule. A bit slower than we initially looked at in our poll, but the reading speed is substantially higher than it currently is (24% higher, at an average of 6176 chars a week). So there is a good compromise between seeking to limit the number of weeks we spend reading one book, while making sure the reading speed doesn’t get amped too much, too quickly.

授乳

  1. 部屋を出ていった。(4355 chars)
  2. という気がする。(5444 chars)
  3. 泡立て始めた。(5361 chars)
  4. end of story. (6637 chars)

コイビト

  1. 思えてくる。(5672 chars)

:warning: This is in the middle of a paragraph. It’s such a monster paragraph, there is just no way around it.

  1. 放っておけなかった。(5762 chars)
  2. 理想の形で、美しく。(6468 chars)
  3. あたしにはわかっていた。(5243 chars)
  4. end of story (5612 chars)

御伽の部屋

  1. ルールなのだった。(7380 chars)
  2. ことがわかった。(5792 chars)
  3. かくことが出来た。(6097 chars)
  4. 特に何も言ってこなかった。(6640 chars)
  5. ようと走り続けた。(7678 chars)
  6. あたしにもわかった。(7058 chars)
  7. 外へと歩み出た。(6216 chars)
  8. end of the story (4484 chars)

What do you think?

8 Likes
#9

Two very good points - I’m very much in favor of the schedule you came up with. Thank you!

That looks like a lot of characters, seeing them in numbers like that. コンビニ人間 didn’t seem like that much!

5 Likes
#10

Sounds good to me. I voted for the faster ones, because I usually can’t hold myself back and start to read ahead… but if it’s faster, then it might happen later. :stuck_out_tongue:

I guess it’s time to buy the book and check for kindle locations…

4 Likes
#11

Sounds good, thanks for making all that effort! :bowing_man:

4 Likes
#12

Seems like we’re agreed on the schedule then! I added it to the OP. Maybe someone with the physical book would be so kind as to give page numbers for the breaks :slight_smile:

3 Likes
#13

here you go~

Week Start Story End page Kindle loc End phrase Page count
1 14 Aug 授乳 17 101 部屋を出ていった。 9
2 21 Aug 授乳 28 216 という気がする。 11
3 28 Aug 授乳 39 330 泡立て始めた。 11
4 4 Sep 授乳 52 472 end of story 13
5 11 Sep コイビト 67 598 ように思えてくる。 12
6 18 Sep コイビト 79 723 放っておけなかった。 12
7 25 Sep コイビト 92 864 理想の形で、美しく。 13
8 2 Oct コイビト 110:warning: 1044 あたしにはわかっていた。 18 :warning:
9 9 Oct コイビト 121 1164 end of story 11
10 16 Oct 御伽の部屋 138 1321 ルールなのだった。 13
11 23 Oct 御伽の部屋 150 1443 ことがわかった。 12
12 30 Oct 御伽の部屋 163 1590 かくことが出来た。 13
13 6 Nov 御伽の部屋 176 1731 特に何も言ってこなかった。 13
14 13 Nov 御伽の部屋 192 1896 ようと走り続けた。 16
15 20 Nov 御伽の部屋 206 2046 あたしにもわかった。 14
16 27 Nov 御伽の部屋 218 2180 外へと歩み出た。 12
17 4 Dec 御伽の部屋 227 2273 end of story 9
4 Likes
#14

You’re a total star :star_struck:

What’s the meaning behind some of them being bold?

2 Likes
#15

I wanted to bring attention to the 18-pages week (to check if it’s intentional because I remember you corrected yourself similar outlier in 殺人出産 ) and then I also noticed 16-pages and 9-pages later and had doubts about them too but not so big doubts as about Week 8 (it would also require more shuffling anyway), so I bolded them but didn’t put the ! mark next to them :sweat_smile: I’m sorry it wasn’t clear.

1 Like
#16

Ahhh, that makes sense! Thanks for the quality control! :wink:

In week 8 I must’ve confused myself somehow :thinking: We could move the last paragraph of week 8 to week 9 (so week 8 breakpoint at よくわからなかった, Kindle 1031). That’ll make it a bit shorter (though it’ll still be a bit of an outlier). Or we pick a breakpoint inside of a paragraph right in the middle of the week 8/9 portion.

I also had another look at the third story. I think we could rearrange the breaking points to move the outlier week to a section in which the extra pages are less cumbersome. I won’t go into details why, as that might be a spoiler. This might be a more even distribution:

Week 14: とだけ答えた (Kindle 1835)
Week 15: ばかり眺めていた (Kindle 1974)
Week 16: と繰り返した (Kindle 2131)
Week 17: end.

2 Likes
#17

This looks like full paragraph of dialogue and I don’t see a good stopping point at first glance… But we can use an ever earlier break. I can’t decide, you’re running this club, you pick :stuck_out_tongue: Below are both options:

Week 8, Option 1

Week Start Story End page Kindle loc End phrase Page count
8 2 Oct コイビト 109 1031 よくわからなかった 17
9 9 Oct コイビト 121 1164 end of story 12

Week 8, Option 2

Week Start Story End page Kindle loc End phrase Page count
8 2 Oct コイビト 105 982 不可能なのだと感じた 13
9 9 Oct コイビト 121 1164 end of story 16

The 2nd option seems slightly more even, although in the 1st option it’s the beginning of the 109 page, so the change is bigger than it seems.

And the revised end:

I… saw there is some weird thing going on there but I did my best not to look.

Week Start Story End page Kindle loc End phrase Page count
14 13 Nov 御伽の部屋 186 1835 とだけ答えた 10
15 20 Nov 御伽の部屋 199 1974 ばかり眺めていた 13
16 27 Nov 御伽の部屋 214 2131 と繰り返した 15
17 4 Dec 御伽の部屋 227 2273 end of story 13
3 Likes
#18

Heavy is the head that wears the crown!

I think those last four weeks are a bit more even like this, at least in the way that matters (how long it’ll likely take to read). As for week 8/9, I think it’s pretty arbitrary which one we choose… but let’s go with the second option. It looks a bit better on paper. We don’t want to scare anyone off if they see a 17 page week in the schedule.

Thanks a lot for your help! I’ll fix the schedule in the OP and then we’re good to go

and wait five more weeks.

6 Likes
#19

Just checking–are we still planning on starting on the 14th or are we going to bump all the dates back a week due to the unscheduled break in 殺人? I figured I would spam the book club threads a bit so we might alert potential newcomers to the MBC on time to buy a copy.

6 Likes
#20

Let’s have a poll!

When shall we start reading?
  • Stick with August 14
  • Let’s start on August 21

0 voters

1 Like