Advanced Japanese Book Club
Welcome to our Advanced Japanese book club! In this club we choose a Japanese book, read it together, and discuss what we’ve read. It could be meaningful discussion on the content, questions about vocabulary and grammar that confuse us, or just motivating each other to keep moving.
We’d love it if you joined the club! All you have to do is buy the next book lined up, read along with the schedule and join in the discussion!
This is the Advanced Book Club, meaning we are aiming to read either longer modern books (at a faster pace) or harder books (i.e. older or more literary books) than the other clubs.
For the modern books, we will aim at reading 30 - 50 pages per week, while we plan to read the less modern, more literary books at about 15 pages per week.
If you are instead looking for something a bit more chill, why not check out the Intermediate Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: 変な家 // Next: 妊娠カレンダー ?
Now reading: マスカレード・ホテル
Start Date: Aug 17th, 2024
Next: 本の読み方 スロー・リーディングの実践
Start Date: Nov 9th, 2024
Current Proposals
Category 1: easier reading, faster pace
1. クォンタムデビルサーガ アバタールチューナーⅠ
Author: 五代 ゆう（ごだい ゆう）
Illustrator: 前田 浩孝（まえだ ひろたか）
Length: 372
Nomination Post
荒廃の地ジャンクヤードでは、勝利者を楽園へ迎え入れると説く〈カルマ教会〉の支配の下、
６つのトライブがいつ果てるとも知れぬ戦いを続けていた。
しかし、そんなトライブのひとつ〈エンブリオン〉のサーフらが交戦中、
謎の蕾と黒髪の少女セラに遭遇した刹那、世界の掟は根本から覆される。
彼らは状況を探るべく抗戦相手の本拠地を訪れるが、そこで悪魔の力が発動し……
2. 村上海賊の娘
Nomination Post
Length: 343 pages
Author: 和田竜 (Wada Ryou)
3. 砂漠 (さばく a campus life)
Nomination Post
Length: 512 pages
Author: 伊坂 幸太郎 (Isaka Koutarou)
4. さわらびの譜
5. 風が強く吹いている
6. Butter
7. 香君 上 西から来た少女
8. 占星術殺人事件
Category 2: harder reading, slower pace
1. 風立ちぬ
Author: 堀 辰雄（ほり たつお）
Length: 110
Nomination Post
The Wind Has Risen (風立ちぬ – Kaze Tachinu) is a Japanese novel by Hori Tatsuo, written between 1936–37. It is set in a tuberculosis sanitarium in Nagano, Japan. The plot follows a main character identified only with the pronoun “I” as he takes care of his fiancée, and then wife, Setsuko, who has been diagnosed with the disease, deciding to stay with her until her death.
The main character meditates about life and death as he sees her beloved’s condition deteriorating, finally moving with her to a sanatorium surrounded by beauty, and finally discovering that just like the wind rises he can still keep living after her death through the strong bond of their love.
2. 文字渦
Author : 円城塔 (Toh EnJoe)
Length: 302
Nomination Post
昔、文字は本当に生きていたのだと思わないかい?
――秦の始皇帝の兵馬俑から発掘された三万の漢字「文字渦」
――硯のうえで文字を闘わせる、いにしえの言語遊戯「闘字」
――漢字の領土争いにルビの反乱! Unicode宇宙大戦「誤字」
――さらには、恐ろしい大量殺字事件までもが起こり「幻字」
Over at Natively, there is also a list of the WK Advanced Japanese Book Club Nominations | Japanese list by nikoru | Natively, where you can directly check out the books’ levels and reviews.
Previous Books
| # | Title | Nomination | Poll (#Voters) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 本好きの下剋上 | nomination | #1 | 2020.07.09 (27) |
| 2 | 雪国 | nomination | #2 | 2020.09.18 (24) |
| 3 | 容疑者Xの献身 | nomination | #3 | 2020.12.04 (17) |
| 4 | すべてがFになる | nomination | #4 | 2021.02.25 (18) |
| 5 | 人間失格 | nomination | #5 | 2021.05.18 (20) |
| 6 | 乳と卵 | nomination | #6 | 2021.08.05 (15) |
| 7 | パノラマ島綺譚 | nomination | Tie-Breaker (13) | |
| 8 | 本陣殺人事件 | nomination | #7 | 2021.11.20 (15) |
| 9 | 薬屋のひとりごと | nomination | Tie poll (8) | |
| 10 | 海辺のカフカ | nomination | #8 | 2022.04.15 (25) |
| 11 | 狼と香辛料 | nomination | #9 | 2022.07.14 (21) |
| 12 | ユージニア | nomination | #10 | 2022.09.19 (14) |
| 13 | この本を盗む者は | nomination | #11 | 2022.12.19 (22) |
| 14 | 四畳半神話大系 | nomination | #12 | 2023.02.22 (23) |
| 15 | 風の谷のナウシカ | nomination | #13 | 2023.05.22 (17) |
| 16 | マリアビートル | nomination | ||
| 17 | 傲慢と善良 | nomination | #14 | 2023.09.25 (18) |
| 18 | 虐殺器官 - Genocidal Organ | nomination | #15 | 2024.01.02 (13) |
| 19 | 蛇にピアス | nomination | #16 | 2024.03.14 (12) |
| 20 | アンダーグラウンド | nomination | ||
| 21 | マスカレード・ホテル | nomination | #17 | 2024.07.02 (17) |
| 22 | 本の読み方 スロー・リーディングの実践 | nomination | #18 | 2024.09.23 (16) |
Over at Natively, there is also a list of the Books read by the WK Advanced Japanese Book Club | Japanese list by nikoru | Natively so far.
Book Proposals
How to Propose Books
As a rough guideline, good candidates are (1) those books that exceed ~300 pages in modern, standard Japanese; OR (2) those books shorter than ~300 pages that are less modern, more literary (read: harder).
Proposal Template
Taken directly from the beginner book club.
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!
!!! ONLY COPY BELOW THIS LINE !!!
# Insert Title Here
Author:## Summary
[details=“Japanese”]
Add Japanese summary here.
[/details]
[details=“English”]
Add English summary here.
[/details]Length:
Category:
Natively link:## Availability
Insert link to book on amazon.co.jp here.
Insert link(s) to eBook here, or mention if an eBook is not available.## 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]
Purchasing Books
Please see the Discussion Thread of the current book for direct purchasing links.
Physical Books
Two good options for purchasing physical books are:
The former has economy shipping options which are likely to be cheaper but slower. You can also check out the Amazon site for your home country, or might be able to find the book on Amazon US.
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. Alternatively, you may be able to find the book at a local Japanese book store such as Kinokuniya; just google your area.
Book types:
- 単行本 (たんこうぼん): “stand-alone book”. Hardcover or paperback, denoted by ハードカバー or ソフトカバー. Slightly larger than 文庫本.
- 文庫本 (ぶんこぼん): small-format paperbacks, cheap but usually well-bound.
eBooks
There are several places you may be able to purchase eBooks:
-
eBook Japan | no regional restrictions; not Kindle-compatible | see this usage guide
-
Book Walker | accepts paypal
-
Honto | not Kindle-compatible; mobile reader app is region-locked – on Android, get an APK, on iOS, use JP App Store
-
Amazon JP | check out sirvorn’s wonderful guide
Archive
Nominations with Low Interest
In order to keep the list of nominations fresh and interesting, we decided to remove those that frequently get only few votes in the polls.
This is a bit tricky as currently the number of nominated books is high while the number of participants in the polls is rather low. To mitigate this, we set the threshold to 10%.
A book will be removed from the list of nominations if it scored less than this threshold in three polls in a row. This table is used to keep track of the books that were removed or are in danger of being removed:
| Book | 1st time | 2nd time | 3rd time | Removed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| アウト (OUT) 上 | Poll 2 | Poll 3 | Poll 4 | 2021-03-02 |
| 薮の中・将軍 | Poll 3 | Poll 4 | Poll 5 | 2021-05-22 |
| 騎士団長殺し 第１部 | Poll 4 | Poll 5 | Poll 6 | 2021-08-09 |
| 86―エイティシックス― | Poll 9 | Poll 10 | Poll 11 | 2022-12-23 |
| 化物語(上) | Poll 10 | Poll 11 | Poll 12 | 2022-02-25 |
| 感応グラン=ギニョル | Poll 13 | Poll 14 | Poll 15 | 2024-01-09 |
| 午後の曳航 | Poll 15 | Poll 16 | Poll 17 | 2024-07-09 |
| 檸檬 | Poll 15 | Poll 16 | Poll 17 | 2024-07-09 |
| 砂漠 (さばく a campus life) | Poll 17 | Poll 18 | ||
| 文字渦 | Poll 17 | Poll 18 |
Note that books can be re-nominated after having been removed, but that should only happen after some time.
Previous Nominations that were removed for other reasons
- くま クマ 熊 ベアー (moved to the intermediate book club)
Favourite Pick Polls
- For book #1 to #12 (poll #1 - #10)
Links
- Master List of Book Clubs
- Discord Read Aloud Server - Used for read aloud sessions for some books, depending on interest from book club participants.
All things subject to change as community wants and needs are gauged.
