殺人出産 🤰🔪 Book Club

Here we go y’all, the most hotly anticipated week yet! :open_mouth:

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Second to last week for 殺人出産! Looking forward to the ending and the next 2 shorter stories :+1:

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The more I read, the more obsessed I am becoming with Sayaka Murata. I am thinking of nominating Earthlings for either the Intermediate or Advanced Book Club. The cut-off for the IBC is <350 pages and the quick’n’easy category in the ABC is 300> pages. Since the bunko edition has 336, it could go in either one of those. Where do you think it’d be the best fit?

  • Intermediate Book Club
  • Advanced Book Club
  • Neither
  • Both

0 voters

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Selfishly voted intermediate because I’m not sure I could keep up with the ABC yet. It would also give me some time to do some of my own reading before they finish コーヒーが冷めないうちに. There’s no way I could not participate in an Earthlings club if it happened. I already have the Japanese version and it’s one of my favorite books in English (I just wish I hadn’t read it yet so I could enjoy the story for the first time in Japanese).

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I think this depends a lot on your preferred reading speed. We are currently reading at ~45 pages per week in the Advanced Book Club vs. ~15 pages in the Intermediate Book Club.
Where would you like to be in terms of reading speed for the book?

Also, I think by now you’ve gathered quite a nice fan base around Murata’s books, but I’m of the impression (which might be wrong ofc!) that some of them will not be able to keep up with the Advanced club speed (while being quite happy with the speed in this spinoff-spinoff club here, and probably also with the Intermediate club speed going forward). Maybe that might influence your decision as well?

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Thanks, that’s partially why I asked here, because I want to make sure Murata’s most ardent fans (:wink:) can enjoy it. So far it seems like Intermediate speed is best. I mean, we could also just read it in this club, but I think reading it with the Intermediate club would get us some new converts members :grin:

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Hehe, sooner or later we’re gonna get them all :grin:

If you submit it to the Intermediate club, you should be aware that it will only be read when it gets picked, of course - and that might take a long time or might maybe not happen at all.

With this I’m not saying you should not submit, not at all! Especially since we only have 13 nominations right now, and it would be nice to have some more. But if you want to read another Murata book soon, you might want to keep this in mind.

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There’s plenty more to choose from! I think Earthlings might have the most ‘common’ appeal cause it’s reasonably well known and has a translation available. Of all the remaining books, I think that one has the best chances in an official Book Club poll.

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So you would nominate it in the Intermediate Club and then we keep reading other books in our spinoff-spinoff-spinoff until it gets picked? :rofl:
Smart move, I’m impressed!

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Maybe my view is a bit skewed because I’ve been in bookclubs with Murata fans all year, but I think there’d be a solid chance of winning the vote. Murata seems to generate a lot of enthusiasm, and her books are also very accessible for those moving up from the beginner level.

That being said I feel like it wouldn’t be right to submit a nomination then run a separate club if it loses, so I feel like you kind of lock it into the nomination cycle once you propose it. But I agree that it might have the most common appeal (due to its familiarity much more so than its content…). And if it didn’t win I’d always be down to tackle a different Murata pick in this bastard line of offshoot clubs!

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I’ve thought this pretty often until now, and sometimes it was correct, but most of the time not :woman_shrugging: So I’ve somehow stopped wondering about how much success a book might have…

Yep, same here. That’s something I would not like at all.
I thought @Phryne was talking about reading different books in the meantime (in case it does not get picked).

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Yep. But it is in important consideration… How keen are we to read Earthlings over any of the other books? And how keen are we to get more converts? :thinking: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

(I mean seriously though, I really do think Murata’s writing is excellent for people trying to get into ‘novels written for actual Japanese adults’, so I just want to make sure as many Japanese learners as possible get to experience that :grin:)

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That’s how I read it too, I think we’re all on the same page.

Like you said before I think of Murata’s books Earthlings would do the best as an official book club pick due to its popularity. And I personally would rather read other Murata books first since I’d like to read stories that I’m unfamiliar with, so to me at least it’s a win-win. Although I’m sure there are other club members who aren’t familiar with it who are probably itching to read it.

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Like me! But I also enjoy reading the lesser known untranslated works, cause it makes me feel very pleased when I am enjoying a book that I can only enjoy because I learned Japanese. Makes all of the grinding feel totally worth it :grin:

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Absolutely! I definitely get immense satisfaction from being able to read 殺人出産 for that exact reason. Being able to read something (with an available translation) in its native language is certainly satisfying, but being able to read something that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to is sublime. Almost like this insane sisyphean task I’ve dedicated myself to is actually worth it.

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I adore the idea of nominating Earthlings to the official club and running a second club for something less “mainstream” :heartbeat:

(Just one thing to remember - Earthlings is also thematically on the heavier side.)

I’m also so thrilled seeing so many people who like Murata. Since first Konbini run didn’t have any follow-up I thought she’s not that popular, or at least people prefer to check different authors more.

And well, in case of spin-off book club, maybe this time the book that gets picked will finally be something I didn’t read yet, it shouldn’t be that hard statistically :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, my mood right now is very glittery :sparkles:

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Would definitely join if nominated. Murata is a joy to read and fairly accessible language-wise, but yeah - I’m still too slow to keep up with ABC. Need to get a couple more books under my belt before I join those lofty ranks:) so would vote for intermediate club

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I’m definitely down for a Murata club. I don’t mind keeping the pace as it or speeding it up a notch. Don’t know any of the remaining books, so no preference.

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More Murata, yes! :smiley: I’m really excited to read Earthlings but iirc I didn’t even get to vote for it last time because some of her other works sounded even more interesting, so I’d be fine with waiting a bit for Earthlings if it gets nominated for the IBC/ABC. Keeping up with the ABC pace would definitely be very challenging though so I only voted IBC.

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