I’m going to carry on reading with the club whatever pace we end up going with.
I can easily switch to 1w per chapter if thats what we end up doing since I already read the whole chapter on the first week and then have a rest week because I prefer reading a full chapter in one sitting - but I’m voting to keep the 2w per chapter pace for volume 3 because we are a small enough club that I’d prefer not to drop any members who need to read at a slower pace.
I’m mostly fine with whatever pace is chosen, but I voted for 2w per chapter. I don’t want to leave anyone behind if we’re reading too fast, for one thing. And for another, while I’d be more than capable of reading a chapter a week, the chances of me having the time to really analyze what I’m reading and then post questions/responses as needed would drop dramatically. And I’ve already been struggling to find the time to do that with the 2w per chapter pace, as shown by how little I’ve ended up posting during volume 2…
I think to address some of the concern in this message, I can only speak for myself but I don’t think anyone in this club is interested in leaving anyone behind. This book club’s first volume was my first time touching native material and the pace when we first started was more than enough reading for a single week. I no longer personally feel that pressure and would be comfortable moving to a higher pace, so I voted in kind. But as was stated in the original poll - we’re only changing pace if the vast majority of readers want to, so I don’t feel that by casting my vote I am intentionally excluding others (and actually I’m curious to others thoughts but I am privy to making this decision unanimously in the future so as to not leave anyone behind). The reality is that by hosting this poll, we can get a read on how people are doing within the club, and since the original schedule has a 2 year reading block for the series, it’s not unlikely that at some point all ~10 members will be interested in an increased pace.
Also fwiw it looks like we’re not there yet and the majority is still looking to keep the current pace now so no worries!
I also voted to increase the pace because it was feeling a little slow for me, but it is way more important not to leave others behind. Please let’s keep the pace as it is if it would otherwise mean leaving people behind.
I’m not sure if I misread it earlier, but when I voted I was the only one voting to keep it at the current pace and I thought there were 3-4 votes for increasing. Maybe some people have changed their vote around now. Either way the point of my post was not to swing the vote specifically to benefit me, I just wanted to voice that I was feeling a bit blindsided by a double-difficulty increase combining a faster pace with more pages. I think we should feel out the increased pages first before also deciding to ramp up the speed.
For clarity, I’m 100% not saying anybody who wants to speed up wants to exclude slower readers! It’s great to see bookclub members progressing with their reading skills and wanting to read more!
I just remember being the slower reader who had to drop out of several clubs and how demotivating I found it, especially in cases where I was the only person who wanted to keep a slower pace - so now that I’m a faster reader I tend to vote with the slower readers in any bookclub. 
I changed my vote, mostly because I hadn’t noticed the increase in chapter length. (So thanks point pointing that out, @Dimsumwitch!)
Hi folks, thanks for all the comments!
Sorry for the confusion – I definitely could have made it clearer that I was only going to even consider increasing the pace if we had a strong majority, and even then, I was interested in hearing people’s opinions before making a final decision. I wasn’t planning to close the poll until at least a few days had passed and more club members had voted, either.
I’m happy that folks feel strongly about not leaving people in the club behind! Actually, given that it’s a small club, I agree with @jablekanji that it makes sense to do a consensus vote at the end of future volumes (as in, we only increase the pace if everyone agrees to do so). Hopefully, that removes any pressure anyone feels to vote any particular way.
Alright, with two days left until Saturday, I’ve closed the Vol 3 reading pace poll!
As per the results of the poll, we’ll be reading at two weeks per chapter. Vol 3’s reading starts on Mar 15th.
If there are any issues with the thread, please reply to this post and let me know!
Looking forward to reading the next volume with you all!
Hooray, it’s the first week of vol 3! Reminders for future weeks will be posted in the vol 3 thread.
Have fun reading!
Based on the results of the poll, we will be reading volume 4 at a rate of 2 weeks per chapter.
Hi folks! It’s time to vote on the reading pace for Vol 4.
Just like Vol 3, this volume is only 4 chapters long. Also, funnily enough, the page counts are exactly the same as in Vol 3, down to which chapter has which number of pages (details below). As usual, this doesn’t account for page density. For example, the first page of Vol 4 has no text at all!
| Chapter | Pages (RE) | Page Count (no interchapter art) |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | 6-50 | 41 |
| 12 | 51-98 | 44 |
| 13 | 99-144 | 42 |
| 14 | 145-189 | 44 |
Because this is a small club, it’s particularly important not to leave anyone behind, so we will only increase the pace if everyone who votes agrees to do so. (That being said, please vote even if some folks have already voted to keep the current pace – it’s good to see how everyone’s feeling about the reading.)
As always, feel free to share your thoughts below. I’ll close the vote in a few days!
What pace would you like to read volume 4 at?
Volume four, week one is here!
As per the results of the poll, we will be reading at two weeks per chapter.
We’re one quarter of the way through the series, folks!
Based on the results of the poll, we will be reading volume 5 at a rate of 2 weeks per chapter.
Hi folks! It’s time to vote on the reading pace for Vol 5.
It’s another volume with exactly the same page counts as the last volume! Makes me wonder if it could be on purpose?!
| Chapter | Pages (RE) | Page Count (no interchapter art) |
|---|---|---|
| 19 | 6-50 | 42 |
| 20 | 51-98 | 45 |
| 21 | 99-144 | 43 |
| 22 | 145-189 | 45 |
As usual, we’ll only be increasing pace if there are no votes to keep the current pace. (That being said, please vote anyways so we can see how everyone’s feeling about the reading!)
As always, feel free to share your thoughts below. I’ll close the vote in a few days!
What pace would you like to read volume 5 at?
I quickly went through a scantrad of volume 3 and 4, and am now skimming through the japanese version.
I’ll see if I can join again for volume 5, at least do the first two chapter while on holiday (and then I will move house, so…) .
I won’t vote tho, I don’t want to slow down people if I’m not even participating anymore.
Based on the results of the poll, we will be reading chap 23 and 24 at a rate of 1 week per chapter, and chap 25 and 26 at a rate of 2 weeks per chapter.
It’s reading pace poll time!
These page counts are remarkably consistent between volumes! (Although it looks like I’ve been counting one less page per chapter for the last few volumes, oops.) By this point it feels like it has to be intentional, although I wonder why not every chapter has the same page count.
| Chapter | Pages (RE) | Page Count (no interchapter art) |
|---|---|---|
| 23 | 6-50 | 42 |
| 24 | 51-98 | 45 |
| 25 | 99-144 | 43 |
| 26 | 145-189 | 45 |
At a glance, chapters 25 and 26 are denser, having significant amounts of lore. 25 also introduces a new incantation. So this time I’ll suggest a split option, to give people a taste of 1 week per chapter if they want to try it.
We’ll only be increasing pace to the slowest pace anyone votes on. (eg. if we get a single vote for keeping the current pace, that’s what we’ll do.) Please vote regardless so we can see how everyone’s feeling about the reading!
As always, feel free to share your thoughts below. I’ll close the vote in a few days!
What pace would you like to read volume 6 at?
Hum… Tricky. Some chapters in volume 5 I feel I could have read in 1 week (e.g the first and last one), and other were much more challenging.
Kinda wish we could know in advance. 
This is a good point. At a glance, chap 25 and 26 are significantly denser than the others with new lore, so I’ve suggested a split option (1 week for 23 and 24, 2 weeks for 25 and 26). That might give people a chance to try out reading 1 week per chapter, and then perhaps people can catch up during the 2 week portion if they struggled with the higher pace.
We only had one vote so far, so I’ve updated the poll with a new split chapter option. @jablekanji please vote again when you have the chance!
Based on the results of the poll, we will be reading chap 27 and 30 at a rate of 2 weeks per chapter, and chap 28 and 29 at a rate of 1 week per chapter.
It’s reading pace poll time!
As you can probably guess, the page counts are the same this volume as in the last!
| Chapter | Pages (RE) | Page Count (no interchapter art) |
|---|---|---|
| 27 | 6-50 | 42 |
| 28 | 51-98 | 45 |
| 29 | 99-144 | 43 |
| 30 | 145-189 | 45 |
I’m glad we got to try a split chapter option for the first time for volume 6! How did you feel about the increased pace?
If you’re interested, I have a split chapter suggestion for this volume as well: two weeks each for the first and last chapters of the volume, one week each for the second and third.
Chapter 27 starts with relatively simple text, but there’s a LOT of it, because it’s reintroducing all the characters, and there’s some tougher pages in the second half. So this would be good for a two week chapter.
Chapter 28 has noticeably less text per page than the other chapters, and would be good candidate for reading in one week.
Chapter 29 is a bit of a mix – it has some text-heavy pages near the end but it also has a lot of pages with very little or even no text. If we did this chapter in two weeks we’d just end up with a very light week and then a heavy week, so I think we may as well do it in one.
Chapter 30 definitely looks like a two week chapter. There’s a page that has two text bubbles with six lines each on it lol. And there’s plenty of other long pages too.
You’re also welcome to vote to return to the original pace (2 weeks per chapter), or increase to 1 week per chapter.
We’ll be changing pace to the slowest pace anyone votes on. Please vote regardless so we can see how everyone’s feeling about the reading!
As always, feel free to share your thoughts below. I’ll close the vote in a few days!
What pace would you like to read volume 7 at?
Huh, is it reading pace poll time already?!
Well, not really!
But I’ve got two reasons to start the poll for Vol 8 early:
Why does it matter that we might be reading through the Christmas season?
Well, last year, the ABBC for Cardcaptor Sakura took a three week break between Vol 1 and Vol 2 for Christmas break.
But things are going to be a bit different this year. We might be in the middle of a volume during the Christmas season, and we’re all more experienced readers, so we might want to do something different.
So I’m actually going to be putting up two polls today:
If you’re ready to vote now I would appreciate it – but I won’t be closing either of these polls until next Saturday (Nov 8th) at earliest, and I can leave one or either poll for longer, or reopen them if people have concerns.
See the posts below for more details!
