My paper copy should arrive this Friday; assuming it has the short story in it then I will be reading that too. I’m happy with pretty much any start date.
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It would be nice to get through most of the main story before ユージニア starts, so my vote is for October 17 or 24. A 3-week pace sounds reasonable.
I’ll probably read the short story too, but maybe a bit slower since it’s lower-priority.
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Mildly interestingly, it looks like my digital version (since I bought it before 2022) is a delisted slightly older edition that looks identical but without the 解説 at the back.
I have no opinion on start date!
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I also don’t care about start date, but agree that it would be nice to not overlap with S&M.
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My physical copy arrived today. Main story is page 6 – 160, so 155 pages. The short 上海氏の蒐集品 is 164 – 226, so 63 pages, and the kaisetsu is 5 pages if you are a kaisetsu-reading completionist like me.
If we’re OK with 3 weeks for the main story I’ll look for breaks that give us about 50 pages a week.
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Yes, it seems we’re all good with having a 3 week schedule for the main story. Thank you! 
I create the thread when we have the schedule~
Since most of us don’t seem to have a strong opinion on the start date, if you don’t mind having a bit of an overlap with the first week of the ABC, @Escalus, the 24th seems to be an alright starting date. In hindsight I should have included earlier dates as well. 
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Sounds good to me
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Proposed schedule/split:
Week 1: pages 6 - 55 (50 pages)
Week 2 : pages 56 – 106 (51 pages); starts at section ゆらめく蠟燭
Week 3 : pages 107 – 160 (54 pages); starts at section 赤インクの悪戯
Week 4 : pages 164 – 197 (34 pages); short story part 1
Week 5 : pages 198 – 226 (29 pages); short story part 2
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I think the schedule looks great! Thank you!
I’ll create the thread over the weekend (unless I forget), so if anyone has anything to add/changes to propose, let me know!
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We’re live! 
As always, let me know if there’s anything I missed or that should be changed! Read you all soon~
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So for book-buying purposes, 犬神家の一族 will be our next one, right?
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Yep!
This is actually the last one we had planned (?) last time we talked about the chronology, so we’ll have to have a look at what’s next soon~~
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Could we do that now, actually? I’m trying to batch up book-buying to save on shipping, so if we can fix what the next book after 犬神家の一族 would be I can buy it in advance…
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It looks like if I were constructing it the same way I made my own personal queue of 5 originally (i.e., going chronologically through Kindaichi novels as listed on wikipedia), it would come to:
- 女王蜂
- 悪魔が来りて笛を吹く
- 不死蝶
- 幽霊男
- 迷路の花嫁
Which looks pretty good (I’m curious about the flute one from that concept album).
That said – 犬神家の一族 is the main one I’m personally looking forward to by a longshot, and with the last set, I was partly curious how the “B-sides” so to speak would go after Honjin and Gokumontou were both especially good… and I feel like the B-sides haven’t been unmissable barnburners. So if it were just me making my own queue I might mix up the formula and sprinkle in other Yokomizo or something (like his period series 人形佐七捕物帳 which I’m curious about).
Which is just to say that Inugami might be a good disbanding point if desired, and if not I’d be completely open to other lists/orders!
女王蜂 would probably be the next otherwise though if we kept with the same pattern, unless I’m overlooking notable short stories or novellas.
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I think 悪魔が来りて笛を吹く is pretty famous (and a translation was just announced!). I’d definitely like to read it, and I’ve been enjoying the book club format…
…although I will also say I haven’t been finding Yokomizo particularly compelling although I joined the book club late so I haven’t read Honjin or Gokumontou so I think my own selfish ideal would be to continue Yokomizo through Devil’s Flute and then have the club switch to a different series/author.
But I’m also going to stick with Yokomizo for as long as the club does.
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I’d prefer to stick to the more famous/notable books (so maybe skip 女王蜂 and go straight to 悪魔が来りて笛を吹く?).
In the long run, I wouldn’t mind if this club morphed into the “Essential Works of Essential Mystery Authors Club” or something like that.
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I am also happy with going for the notable stuff; I’m not aiming to be completionist about reading everything (and the second short story in the last book demonstrated to me that the less-good stuff is definitely worth avoiding).
Does anybody want to argue for 女王蜂, or shall we skip it and do 悪魔が来りて笛を吹く after 犬神家の一族?
Scheduling-wise, at this point I’m not going to be able to buy a physical copy before the holiday season, so I would prefer a mid-January start date for 犬神家の一族.
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For what it’s worth, 女王蜂 appears to be at least notable enough to have 2 movie versions and a bunch of different tv versions. (all presumably from Kindaichi-related series productions, but hey, that’s a lot more than say 夜歩く has)
Looking at おすすめランキング type pages, it seems like it tends to be in the higher B tier around 夜歩く (if we take for the purposes of argument the ‘A tier’ to be like, 本陣殺人事件, 獄門島, and 八つ墓村 of the ones we’ve read + 犬神家の一族, 悪魔が来りて笛を吹く, and 悪魔の手毬唄 of the ones we haven’t).
Not sure if that’s an argument for or against it though!
If we skip it I might try to sneak it in on my own in that spot anyway, but I’m a sucker for chronologically trudging through large swathes of things, and liked 獄門島 enough to be pretty much bought in on Yokomizo in general.
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Yeah, I was going to say that my impression is that 女王蜂 is just one tier below 悪魔が来りて笛を吹く. I’d feel bad skipping it when 殺人鬼 made the cut!! even if we read it before we discussed having cuts
I was also going to mention 悪魔の手毬唄 as the last of the ‘famous’ Kindaichis.
So I wouldn’t mind continuing in order (including 女王蜂) to 悪魔が来りて笛を吹く, skipping to 悪魔の手毬唄, and then transitioning to something/someone else.
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This sounds good to me.
Though we’ll be missing out on some pretty great book cover art
As for start date - I won’t be able to start 犬神家の一族 until ユージニア ends in late January.
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