Despite of this, it shouldn’t be much of a problem to read it without knowing the other volumes. Of course we learned about the main protagonists’ backgrounds in previous books, but usually there is a quick recap in each volume that covers the most important points. Character development is also very slow because each volume’s main focus is on a given criminal case and not on the life of the people around it, and the cases have been totally unrelated so far. In any case, if you are wondering about anything while reading this book, you are of course free to ask and somebody can fill you in.
Welcome to the 4th Volume of Saikawa&Moe’s detective adventures!
Trying to gauge interest for this volume. First question:
When should we continue with Volume 4?
Start pretty much right after finishing Vol. 3
Take a break and start May-June
Take a break and start July-August
Take a break and start even later (please explain)
0voters
At what speed should we read?
Obvious options would be 1 chapter or 2 chapters per week. One chapter would put us at below 40 pages per week (i.e. a bit less than Vol. 3) while two chapters would give us 70-80 pages per week. What do you think?
Let’s get a bit further into planning! At the moment three people would like to start May-June, I could also be convinced to start at that time, but I’m not sure about you @jhol ? Would you also be able to start May-June? If we’d maybe shift this more towards early (or even mid-) June or something, would that help you?
And what about the speed? Two people would prefer a faster schedule, and one person is in favor of the slower schedule. Usually I would rather like to take care of those who cannot read as fast, but I’m trying to balance this with the whole group at the same time (and I’m a little bit afraid we might get very bored when reading this book at a slower pace) @Jfredel78@Redglare@jhol what do you think?
I should have some more bandwidth come mid-June, but there will likely be times in the coming months where I’m without internet access or without the time to keep my reading pace up, so I wouldn’t make too many decisions on my behalf. Hopefully the timing works out, and if it does I’ll definitely read along!
Alright, everybody liked my post and nobody complained Let’s start on June 18th and read this book in 6 weeks! I’ve updated the OP accordingly.
Looking forward to reading again with y’all!
So the good news is I’ve got my copy and I can’t wait to start! I could even start early if folks would prefer.
The bad news is I found out I’ll be totally off the grid and unable to read anything the week of the 25th, with very limited ability to read the week of the 18th. Could I make a selfish request that we make it a 7 -week schedule and do a chapter per week for those two weeks?
Sorry, I overlooked your post amongst all those thread moving activities going on…
If you have the time up-front, why not start a week or two earlier and read ahead until you are back in sync after week 2? I think it’s nicer to read ahead than to trail behind in your case as your issue lies at the start of the schedule. The wild theories will probably only come up a bit later anyway
But if you urgently need to write down your thoughts early, just ping me and I can get the threads up early. Can’t do any harm as I expect you to use proper spoiler tags.
…right?
RIGHT?!?!!
It’s always a bummer to be too far ahead or behind the group, especially when it comes to mysteries. But you’re right, since the time conflict’s up front and I have some time now that shouldn’t be an issue. Not sure why I didn’t realize that initially!
And I think I’ll stick with my strategy of posting, proof-reading, then frantically trying to edit my post before anybody sees it when I realize forgot to tag a massive spoiler.
I think I messed up the page counts somewhat? I don’t remember how I got to those numbers back then, but when I entered the page numbers into my new reading tracking sheet, I noticed that the sheet believes the page count is quite higher
Also, having noticed that so far only three people voted in the poll for week 2, I wanted to quickly check back with you whether the schedule is still ok or whether we should slow it down a little bit?
Here are the numbers my new sheet gave me:
Week
Start Date
Chapter
OP Page Count
Sheet Page Count
Week 1
June 18th
Chapter 1 + 2
44 + 32 = 76
90
Week 2
June 25th
Chapter 3 + 4
36 + 38 = 74
80
Week 3
July 2nd
Chapter 5 + 6
36 + 45 = 81
88
Week 4
July 9th
Chapter 7 + 8
38 + 32 = 70
78
Week 5
July 16th
Chapter 9 + 10
34 + 35 = 69
76
Week 6
July 23rd
Chapter 11 + 12
38 + 16 = 54
59
What do you think?
I’m ok with our schedule
I’d prefer to reduce the page count per week
I’d prefer to stick with the page count and insert a week-long break somewhere (or two?)
Maybe we should tag those who haven’t voted yet? I think jhol at least mentioned they’d be busy.
As someone who is reading the e-book, I don’t quite get the thing with the number of pages I just go by percentage But I guess the point is that there are a lot of pages to be read each week.
Yeah, sort of and also that it’s even more pages than I had initially envisioned.
I mean, I am aware that many of you are really fast readers, so I figured you wouldn’t mind as much, but I thought I‘d at least mention it in case somebody has an issue. If everybody is happy, then I‘m happy too
I have the physical book, although it’s an older edition that I got from Book Off (so I don’t feel as bad about getting it wet…) My page counts are in between your two counts. Week1: 81, week 2: 78, week 3: 86. With the first/last page of each chapter being typically shorter so you could remove another page or two each week.
It is a tad intense for me with Kafka at the same time, but in a good way. I know I can keep up and I like that it makes me read more since I really haven’t been reading as much lately because reasons (coughcough rewatching all of Buffy/Angel)
Of course I’m also ok with slowing down if anyone wants to.
Let’s start on June 18th and read this book in 6 weeks! 
I’ve updated the OP accordingly.
I think jhol at least mentioned they’d be busy.
I just go by percentage 
But I guess the point is that there are a lot of pages to be read each week.