Absolute Beginners Book Club // Now Reading: Granny Girl Hinata chan!

Definitely soon, unless we reuse many suggestions from the last pool

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I guess we should use them again in case they get selected? :thinking: We don’t have that many, so any new suggestions are more than welcome, but not like we should discard them right away?:3

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One consideration may also be, is the person who made the suggestion still around? I mention this because the “Guidelines for Proposing Books” section says, “if your pick wins, there will be some expectation that you contribute throughout.”

Since しろくまカフェ is my first time participating in a WaniKani book club, I don’t know how big of a necessity this is, so long as there are enough interested readers who can figure things out. So maybe it doesn’t matter so much if the person who proposed isn’t around, so long as enough people are interested in reading it.

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Sorry if this is slightly off topic but I just remembered: I accidentally bought a second used version of Chi‘s Sweet Home volume 1 last year. It might be a bit late for the book club start date but if anyone is taking the July JLPT in Düsseldorf and wants it, I’ll happily give it to you.

(@NicoleIsEnough I guess you don’t want to wait that long? Otherwise I‘ll just take it with me to Düsseldorf and see if anyone wants it)

Thanks for the offer :slight_smile:
I had not planned to read Chi‘s Sweet Home with the book club (too many other books to read currently) but if you have a spare copy I would at least like to take a look in Düsseldorf :wink:

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If we’re already talking about the book after Chii’s then I’m nominating one that I’m planning to read anyways.

おじさまと猫 (Old man and cat)

Summary

おじさまと猫 is about this ugly-cute cat who can’t get adopted until one day when an older gentleman comes to the pet store and adopts him. The comic is about the cat trying to make his human happy and the old man is learning how to be a good cat dad.

Availability

Amazon.co.jp (ships internationally!!!)
Originally published on Pixiv (you can read the first 8-ish chapters for free here but I don’t know how to read past that)
e-book available via kobo.com here thanks @ChristopherFritz

Personal Opinion

Volume 1 contains 15 chapters and ~7 omake chapters. Like しろくまカフェ the chapters are usually about 4 pages long, but there aren’t a calvalcade of puns. Like Chii’s Sweet Home, the subject matter is mostly about cat-human relations and the language used is generally pretty standard but it isn’t always quite as happy as Chii. I ordered this along with しろくまカフェ because I was able to read three chapters without a dictionary handy and it was such a rush. It’s real cute!

Pros and Cons for the Book Club

Pros

  • Cute cat
  • Simple language
  • First 8 chapters are free (see above) so it’s easy to assess if this would be for you

Cons

  • Why are all the easy manga about animals? Especially cats?
  • Some people might not think the cat is cute and we would have to spend time explaining why they are wrong

Pictures

Chapter One

Chapter One can be read for free right here and it’s only 4 pages long so please just go look at it real quick (you may have to click the link and then scroll down till you see 1話)

Chapter Two

Here’s chapter two, because why not?

P.S. As a reminder, the first 8 chapters can be read for free at pixiv. Check it out!!

Difficulty Poll

How much effort would you need to read this book?

  • No effort at all
  • Minimal effort
  • Just right
  • Challenging
  • Impossible, even with everyone’s help
  • I don’t know (please click this if you’re not voting seriously)

0 voters

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I confess I’m a little bit disappointed that the first line isn’t 吾輩は猫である. :stuck_out_tongue:

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It’s a missed opportunity to be sure. But best to make mistakes like that up front so that the rest of it can be great.

Based on the first chapter, it looks like it definitely fits the title of Absolute Beginner. I see the Amazon listing puts it at 148 pages.

Best part for me, the book is available digitally.

I found the table of contents for it which reveals all the chapter lengths:

Chapter lengths
  • Chapter 1 has 4 pages.
  • Chapter 2 has 4 pages.
  • Chapter 3 has 4 pages.
  • Chapter 4 has 4 pages.
  • Chapter 5 has 4 pages.
  • Chapter 6 has 4 pages.
  • Chapter 7 has 4 pages.
  • Chapter 8 has 10 pages.
  • Chapter 9 has 4 pages.
  • Chapter 10 has 6 pages.
  • Chapter 11 has 4 pages.
  • Chapter 12 has 8 pages.
  • Chapter 13 has 6 pages.
  • Chapter 14 has 4 pages.
  • Chapter 15 has 10 pages.
  • Chapter 16 has 4 pages.
  • Chapter 17 has 6 pages.
  • Chapter 18 has 4 pages.
  • Chapter 19 has 10 pages.
  • Chapter 20 has 12 pages.
  • Chapter 21 has 10 pages.
  • Chapter 22 has ?? pages. (last chapter, so can’t tell)

I can understand if the book club skips this one for now to avoid too many animal books in a row, or too many cat books in a row (say what?), but I’m definitely gonna pick it up and read through it!

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Can you ever have too many cats? :laughing:

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I mean, one time, I was told I had too many cats in my dresser:

ezgif-4-3f13e8b4bdef

I don’t know what they meant by it.

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I can check the last chapter length for you when I get home from work in ~10 hours. A lot of the longer chapters are actually side stories that seem to be only in the printed version.

Edit: “Chapter 22” is 16 pages (incl. title page) and then there’s an Author’s Corner page afterward.

I’ve got a nomination as well.

にゃんにゃん探偵団おひるね―赤いとびらの家事件の巻

Summary

A series of three mystery stories with a children’s bookstore owner named Hanae who decided to become a detective. Based on the first book, all the cases involve cats in someway, though they’re not mostly about the cats. The mysteries are all pretty simple (it’s meant for elementary schoolers, after all) and not too serious.

The description from Bookwalker, for anyone interested:
子どもの本の店をしているはなえさんは、へんな事件が大好き。今回もかわいげのない猫カポネと難事件にいどみます。完ぺきなアリバイにいどむ「赤いとびらの家」、ケーキどろぼうの疑いは晴らせるのか「犯人はカポネ?」、そして怪盗ミミッチーマウスが再びあらわれる「にゃんにゃん大行進」。三つの事件は、それぞれ事件編と解決編に分かれています。解決編をみる前に、事件の謎を考えてみましょう。好評の「にゃんにゃん探偵団」シリーズ第2弾。

Availability

amazon.co.jp
amazon.com - bonus hilariously terrible, obviously machine-assisted translation of the title
cdjapan
Bookwalker ebook

Personal Opinion

The first book was great. I haven’t read this book yet, but presumably it’s of similar quality. Hanae is cute as heck and all the mysteries were nice. It’s a really good difficulty for the Absolute Beginner club and is a book (with pictures) rather than a manga.

Pros and Cons for the Book Club

Pros

  • As mentioned, a book rather than a manga, so it has a good amount of writing that’s not just dialogue. We’ll also have had a couple of manga in a row, so changing it up would be nice.
  • The characters are all humans, rather than animals. Cats are involved, but are not the main focus of any stories. (This is probably more up to taste, but it is a change from the last couple of books, so I thought that might make it a pro.)
  • Of course, all the language is pretty simple (it’s intended for 3rd-4th graders, from what I’ve seen.)
  • I’ve seen people ask about doing a follow up for the first book club several times, so there’s definitely interest in the book already.
  • Hanae is cute as heck (her cat… maybe not so much?)

Cons

  • It’s a sequel, so some people might be put off by that. However, the stories in the first volume were all pretty independent, and the book has a page with introductions for all the characters, included those returning from the last book.
  • It’s a bit longer than the first book–135 pages vs 155, based on the Bookwalker listing. I don’t really think the extra 20 pages will be a big deal, but I figured I’d mention it.
  • The stories are fairly long–the first and third are around 60 pages each, while the second is around 20, based on the table of contents. So it’s a bit harder to break up into different weeks (can’t just do “one chapter per week” or something like that.) The group for the first book did around 15 pages a week, by the look of it, though it’s hard for me to figure out exactly.

Pictures

The Bookwalker ebook preview - can also get to it from the Bookwalker link above

First Three Pages of Chapter One

Difficulty Poll

How much effort would you need to read this book?

  • No effort at all
  • Minimal effort
  • Just right
  • Challenging
  • Impossible, even with everyone’s help
  • I don’t know (please click this if you’re not voting seriously)

0 voters

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Those sample pages are much less intimidating than I was bracing myself for.

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But we already read this book!!

Edit: I see you already put in on the post :wink:

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For the next book, I’m fine with my nomination for Wanted

Am I allowed to nominate more than one book, by the way?

As many as you want

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(Well… within reason. :stuck_out_tongue: )

I made a home thread for チーズスイートホーム \o/ :33

We will finish Shirokuma in 4-5 weeks, depending on the vote regarding the long chapter, and Chii is gonna take from 5-7 weeks /o/
Also, have we decided if we want a break after Shirokuma, btw? :thinking: I wonder where to post that poll if not

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Hey guys! IDK what to do, but i would like to join in. what should i do? can anyone direct me around a little? thanks