Reading next: Cardcaptor Sakura
Start date: September 7th
Nominations open: October 10th
Next poll: week of October 19th
Overview
Welcome to our Japanese book club for absolute beginners! In this club, we choose a Japanese book and read it together. We then discuss what we’ve read, whether that’s meaningful discussion on the content, questions about vocabulary and grammar that confuse us, or just motivating each other to keep moving.
What Does Absolute Beginner Mean?
This bookclub is aimed at readers who are tackling native Japanese material for the first time. A grammar knowledge around the level of JLPT N5 / end of Genki 1 is probably about right. Kanji knowledge is not essential as the books chosen will have furigana.
The bookclub isn’t really aimed at readers who are “absolute beginners” in Japanese. At that level your time is probably best spent learning basic grammar and vocabulary before tackling native material. However, reading native material can be a fun way to motivate learning, and readers of all levels are welcome to join the fun and ask questions!
For more information on what joining the ABBC looks like, check out ChristopherFritz’s guide to joining the Absolute Beginner’s Book Club.
Should I Join?
The goal of this Absolute Beginners’ Book Club is to help you practise reading so that in the future you can take the jump to the Beginner Book Club, where more advanced books are being discussed.
With that in mind, anyone is welcome to join in and read along. You don’t need to do anything to become a member, just grab a copy of the upcoming book and join in the discussion when it starts!
Set this thread to “watching” to keep up to date with discussions about upcoming books.
Instructions for setting thread to watching
If you set this thread to watching, you’ll get notifications when there are new posts. You can always turn this off again if you no longer want to receive them.
To do this, scroll down to the last post in this thread. You can use the slider on the side as it’s quite long! Under the last post look for the grey box in the picture below, click on it and select “watching”. You’re all done!
You can always read previous book club choices and get help from their discussion threads. Feel free to post in previously completed book club threads and ask new questions, as there will always be users who are willing to help keeping an eye on those threads.
Previous Books
Bolded titles continued as offshoot bookclubs:
- わんにゃん Book Club
- チーズスイートホーム Reading Club
- レンタルおにいちゃん Reading Club
- からかい上手の高木さん Book Club
- それでも歩は寄せてくる Book Club
- Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea Volume 2 thread
- 三ツ星カラーズ Reading Club
- ハピネス Reading Club
- ちいさな森のオオカミちゃん
- ホリミヤ
- 老女的少女ひなたちゃん
Learn Natively
Natively grades the difficulty of books for language learners using user feedback, with a higher number indicating higher difficulty.
Grading system on Natively website | Wanikani forums Natively thread
Proposed Books
Any book suggestions are welcome, so feel free to nominate something you’d like to read using the template below! The books suggested must be appropriate for absolute beginners though; please read the guidelines before making a nomination.
Guidelines for Proposing Books
-
Nominate something you are ready to read
- This is a big cooperative group, but there’s always a minority keeping things active. If your pick wins, there will be some expectation that you contribute throughout.
- If you can’t read your own sample pages (at least mostly) you may not be able to judge the difficulty effectively, and won’t be able to help others much.
-
Books nominated must not be longer than 100 pages (of text)
- Our reading pace means this is the longest we could tackle within a reasonable time-frame.
- A book of short stories can be longer: we will only pick select stories.
-
Do not nominate anything clearly NSFW
- This can be hard to judge without reading the book, but if you’d associate the work with fanservice or gore, even if just by reputation, please don’t suggest it for this group.
- Please keep in mind that even a few pages of fanservice will feel like a lot to beginning readers who may only be able to read 1 page at a time.
-
Furigana
- Furigana does not necessarily mean that a book is easy or a good choice for the club; please use your best judgement based on the difficulty of vocab, grammar, subject matter, etc. when you determine the difficulty.
- However, please ensure that nominations have full furigana so that kanji knowledge is not an issue for new readers. Partial furigana books should be nominated in the Beginner Book Club.
-
Natively level
- We are now including the book’s level on Natively as a part of the nomination.
- Natively books without enough gradings to receive a level are indicated with question marks (??). If the book you are nominating does not have a level, please use your best judgement determining the difficulty and then post the nomination so that other users can weigh in. You may be asked to move nominations to other clubs like the Beginner’s Book Club.
- Some higher level picks have been chosen in the past, such as Cells at work (L28), and Hunter x Hunter (L29). However, these titles proved to be too difficult for this club. Please try to keep your nominations under Natively level 22. Horimiya (L22) was considered the highest level that was still suitable for the club.
Proposal Template
Copy this template into a new post when proposing a book/manga.
For page samples, you can either take photos of your own copy (try to make the three additional pages ‘representative’ if possible), grab photos from the internet, or use previews from e.g. Amazon, BookWalker, EBookJapan. Make sure the text is legible!
# Insert Title Here
## Summary
Insert summary from Amazon/Wikipedia/MyAnimeList/wherever here.## Availability
Insert link to book on amazon.co.jp here.
Insert link(s) to ebook here, or mention if an ebook is not available.## Natively Level: [number]
Insert link to the book’s learnnatively page## Personal Opinion
Insert why you think this book would be good to read, personally and for the book club here.### Pros and Cons for the Book Club
#### Pros
* Insert pros here.
#### Cons
* Insert cons here.## Pictures
[details=“First Three Pages of Chapter One”]
Insert images here (can be photos from you or the internet, or from ebook previews).
[/details][details=“Additional Pages”]
Insert a few more images here - try to make them representative.
[/details]
List of Proposed Books
Books
| Book Title | Description | Natively |
|---|---|---|
| 日本の昔ばなし | Japanese Folk Tales Collection Vol 1 (Issun-boshi and other stories) | L?? |
| もしかしたら名探偵 | Detective Milky Sugiyama | L16 |
| １０分で読めるこわい話1年生 | 10 minute reader - Scary stories (1st grade reader) | L16? |
Manga
| Manga Title | Description | Natively |
|---|---|---|
| こばと | Kobato | L20? |
| あしょんでよッ ~うちの犬ログ | Let’s Plaaay - Our Dog, Log | L13 |
| 藤本タツキ短編集 17-21 | Fujimoto Tatsuki Short Story Collection 17-21 | L23 |
| ふだつきのキョーコちゃん | Fudatsuki no Kyoko-chan | L18 |
| ギャルと恐竜 | Gal & Dino | L18 |
| 今日から始める幼なじみ | Will you be my childhood friend? | L17 |
| ガールズ＆パンツァー リトルアーミー | Girls und Panzer: Little Army | L21 |
| ネトゲの嫁が人気アイドルだった | My wife in an online game is a popular idol | L19? |
| 花野井くんと恋の病 | A Condition Called Love | L20 |
| 桜井さんは気づいてほしい | Sakurai-san wants to be noticed! | L15 |
| ドラえもん | Doraemon | L22 |
| 絶対に風呂に入りたくない彼女VS絶対に風呂に入れたい彼氏 | Girlfriend who never wants to take a bath vs. boyfriend who definitely wants to put her into the bath | L17 |
| あしたは土曜日 春・夏 | Tomorrow is Saturday | L19 |
Removed Nominations
| Launched as Separate Book Clubs: | ||
|---|---|---|
| おじさまと猫 - An Old Man and a Cat | Link to Bookclub | |
| Dragon Ball SD | Link to Bookclub | |
| こぐまのクーク物語 春と夏 Kuuku the Bear Cub’s Story | Link to book club |
| Low interest/ moved to separate clubs: | ||
|---|---|---|
| ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 (GeGeGe no Kitarō) | moved to BBC | |
| スラムダンク (SLAM DUNK) | moved to BBC | |
| 雪女 (Yuki-onna) | moved to BBC | |
| ヒナのままじゃだめですか? | moved to BBC | |
| ミラーさん (Mr Miller) | low interest [poll 7] | |
| 日本昔ばなしアニメ絵本 (Japanese Fairy Tales (set of 18)) | low interest [poll 8] | |
| 福娘童話集 (Lucky Princess Fairy Tale Collection) | low interest [poll 10] | |
| あたしンち (My Family) | low interest [poll 10] | |
| Wanted (Short stories from the creator of One Piece) | low interest [poll 10] | |
| クリスタルハンタース Crystal Hunters | low interest [poll 12] |
Where to Purchase Books
This section explains where to buy Japanese books in general. Please see each book’s thread for where to buy those specific books.
Purchasing Japanese Books
Physical books:
eBooks:
- Amazon JP (Kindle-compatible)
- EBook Japan (doesn’t show tax until checkout; not Kindle-compatible)
- Book Walker (accepts paypal)
- Honto (mobile reader app is region-locked – on Android get an APK, on iOS use JP App Store; not Kindle-compatible)
If purchasing eBooks from Amazon JP gives you trouble, check out sirvorn’s wonderful guide on purchasing eBooks from Amazon JP.
If you can’t find an online store that will ship to you, you can use a forwarding service like Tenso or White Rabbit Express to forward the package to you for a fee.
If you live in the right place, you may also be able to find the book at a local Japanese book store. For example, Kinokuniya.
Historic Polls
Next Book polls
Links go to the original nomination post:
Book Poll 14 - Winner: Cardcaptor Sakura
Book Poll 13 - Winner: 玉藻の恋
Book Poll 12 - Winner: 老女的少女ひなたちゃん
Book Poll 11 - Winner: 可愛いだけじゃない式守さん
Book Poll 10 - Winner: ホリミヤ
Book Poll 9 - Winner: ルリドラゴン and ちいさな森のオオカミちゃん
Book Poll 8 - Winner: ハンター×ハンター and 働く細胞
Book Poll 7 - Winner: Stories of the Japanese Prefectures
Book Poll 6 - Winner: 三ツ星カラーズ and ハピネス
Book Poll 5 - Winner: それでも歩は寄せてくる and 大海原と大海原
Book Poll 4 - Winner: Teasing Master Takagi-san
Book Poll 3 - Winner: 10分で読める伝記
Book Poll 2 - Winner: 結婚しても恋してる
Book Poll 1 - Winner: しろくまカフェ and チーズスイートホーム
