After reading the first story of the series with the Advanced Bookclub we have decided to keep reading the series as a spin-off club.
本陣殺人事件 - 金田一’s debut. The main story has been read by the AdvBC. We read the short stories included with the book here. 金田一耕助ファイル 2. 獄門島 - The 2nd full length novel. 金田一耕助ファイル 3. 殺人鬼 - Short story collection.金田一耕助シリーズ 17. 夜歩く - The 3rd full length novel. 金田一耕助ファイル 7. 八つ墓村 - The 4th full length novel. 金田一耕助ファイル 1. 死仮面 - The 5th full length novel. 金田一耕助シリーズ 25. 犬神家の一族 - The 6th full length novel. 金田一耕助ファイル 5. 女王蜂 - The 7th full length novel. 金田一耕助ファイル 9. 悪魔が来りて笛を吹く - Start: May 18 2024. 金田一耕助ファイル 4 悪魔の手毬唄 - 金田一耕助ファイル 12
TBA
We aim for a chronological order as much as makes sense considering availability, publication etc.
If there’s a 金田一 novel you’d like to read with us or recommend, we’re open for suggestions!
@rodan@Jfredel78
I went ahead and made a thread for us. I wasn’t sure what all to include so I based it off of the S&M reading club for now. Please let me know if you want to include more information or have other ideas to change things around a bit.
@Jfredel78, if you’ve no preference either way, I’m leaning towards starting with 獄門島 and then coming back to the short stories after that.
Maybe we should talk about reading speed, too? We’re not doing weekly threads, but having a schedule to base reading and discussion around would help me focus. Or a time frame for the whole book would work too. How about you?
I just checked (kindle) page numbers for the chapters in 獄門島, prologue and epilogue included: 11, 42, 38, 43, 63, 33, 29, 39, 3. I could imagine going for a chapter a week or 2-2-2-3 if we want to read faster. I’m not set on anything though. If we wanted to keep the book club pace, we’d really only need to split the longest chapter into 2 weeks.
Cool, thanks @Belerith! I’m fine with reading 獄門島 first, as long as we get to the 本陣 stories at some point. In fact, I just ordered 獄門島 on Amazon! Should be here by Sunday.
As for reading speed, I would lean towards two chapters a week, but I’m fine with one a week. Or we could start with one and speed up if we want to move faster. I know I sped up at the end of 本陣.
Which is my only guess as well - it seems like the 金田一耕助ファイル edition tends to bring popular ones slightly earlier and push less popular ones slightly back (while still being at least roughly chronological), but otherwise who knows…
I do think that they’re 100% standalone, and expect the order won’t really matter at all going forward.
With 本陣 and 獄門島 though – the entire second world war happens between them (in fiction)… which seems like at least slightly important temporal context to me
Yeah, I’m thinking that I might like to read 八つ墓村 and 犬神家の一族 after 獄門島 and the 本陣 stories, but I guess it’ll still be awhile before we have to make that decision.
Sounds like a fine opportunity for a poll to me. I guess between 獄門島 and the remaining short stories in 本陣殺人事件 we’ll likely be set until the end of April, haha.
@rodan: Just making sure, so far you’ve only read 本陣殺人事件 and 獄門島, right?
I expect I’d personally vote chronological(ish - it seems like some of them were serialized at the same time as others…) order with the long novels. I’m curious how the b-side-seeming-ones fare amidst the headliners! And I’ve enjoyed the ones I read enough that I’m happy just chugging away through all of them.
But it’s not a giant deal! And there’s enough books even just hitting the especailly famous ones and skipping the others entirely would be enough fodder for a book club. If you both decide to go directly to 八つ墓村 I’d be tempted to cram in 夜歩く and report back if it’s worth doubling back for.
Just got my copy of 獄門島 in the mail today! I didn’t realize how long the chapters were when I voted for the two chapter schedule, but this should be a good chance for me to work on increasing my reading speed.
I made a tentative schedule based on my paperback copy:
Week
Start Date
Chapter Names
Page Count
Week 1
Mar 7th
プロローグ、第一章
~65
Week 2
Mar 14th
第二章、第三章
~97
Week 3
Mar 21st
第四章、第五章
~107
Week 4
Mar 28th
第六章、第七章、エピローグ
~78
Let me know if this looks okay. I’ll be starting with the Prologue tonight!
It’s not like we have to keep this speed going for all of the books we’ll read. If someone wanted to read along but at a slower pace, I wouldn’t mind slowing down at all. Or, you know. If it turns out to be too fast after all, haha.
Seeing as we are finishing up with 獄門島 this week, do we want to proceed straight on to the additional 本陣 stories for the remainder of April?
There are two stories after 本陣殺人事件：
１）車井戸はなぜ軋る (~76 pages)
２）黒猫亭事件 (~125 pages)
Based on our pace for 獄門島, 車井戸 definitely seems doable in one week. 黒猫 could be broken up into roughly 60 page halves and split over two weeks. Resulting in a schedule like this,
Week
Start Date
Chapter Names
Page Count
Week 1
Apr 4th
車井戸はなぜ軋る（ALL）
~76
Week 2
Apr 11th
黒猫亭事件（はしがき ~ 五）
~60
Week 3
Apr 18th
黒猫亭事件（六 ~ 結尾）
~65
Any thoughts @Belerith (and @rodan)? Should we start right away or do you want to take a week or two off in between?
I’ve also been thinking about this! I wouldn’t mind starting right away, but I also don’t mind taking a break for a week or two.
That way we could let 獄門島 settle a bit first before starting in in our next stories. But like I said, I don’t mind getting right into it either! I’d probably want to take a bit of a break after the 2 short stories if we do so, but we can talk about that then.
Well, the reading load isn’t quite as intense, so that would potentially make it more doable.
Not sure if you’re in Japan, but we do have Golden Week coming up at the beginning of May. We could plan to start the next book (夜歩く?) the week after GW, giving us a start date of May 9th. If we start on the stories right away, that would give us two weeks off between the stories and the next book.
What do you think of these options? (This is assuming we start the next novel on May 9th.)
Start right away (start date: April 4th, two week break after)
One week break (start date: April 11th, one week break after)
Two week break (start date: April 18th, no break after)
I guess between 獄門島 and the remaining short stories in 本陣殺人事件 we’ll likely be set until the end of April, haha.
I see you reposted, will continue reading in the other thread then~