And the winner is…
光の帝国
@pocketcat would you like to be our host for this book?
Happy to! I just moved to a new city and have been quite busy as a result, so probably won’t set up the home thread + propose a schedule immediately, but since the club doesn’t start til August 8th I feel I have some time 
I dropped a reminder on my calendar to do that once things calm down a bit on my end
Looking forward to it!
Yes don’t get stressed out about it! Take your time and settle in to the new place, the book club won’t run away 
And if you feel like you should better use your time elsewhere, I can also step in and propose a schedule on your behalf. 
Made a home thread with a drafted schedule. This would have been a bit more awkward to cut up for the IBC but for the ABC it was nearly perfect (excluding the second to last and last stories).
In case anyone on ABC is interested, we are running a poll on the next read over on the 小川洋子 book club (probably starting in September)
Our current pick has just started!! And as it is not too long, it will be over real quick. Therefore we need to run the nex poll already from Friday (ish) 
Which means: Please get cracking and nominate new books! We have 10 spots available - first nominated, first added 
Nobody nominated a new book, and I am currently not in the position to nominate something either, so here comes
Our Poll
Have a look at the List of Proposed Books section in the first post for details on each book. If you are interested, you can have a look at the books’ Natively levels through this list. The Natively level is also annotated in the poll in square brackets after each book’s name.
Do not rely solely on the levels when making a choice. Please have a look at the nomination posts and text samples if you haven’t already.
Expected reading pace: The proposals fall into two categories, Fast and Hard. We aim to read fast books at 30-50 pages per week and hard books at ~15 pages per week (that number might vary a bit throughout, depending on the book’s breaks and chapters). For manga, depending on difficulty and chapter length, we will probably read one to several chapters per week. The pick’s exact reading schedule will be negotiated before the book club kicks off.
Start of Book Club: We will start the next book on Oct 3rd (after a one-week break).
Poll duration: The poll will be closed on 2026-08-22T11:00:00Z. You can choose up to 5 options.
- さわらびの譜 葉室 麟 [Fast / 326p. / L35?? / Novel]
- 風が強く吹いている 三浦 しをん [Fast / 672p. / L33 / Novel]
- 占星術殺人事件 島田 荘司 [Fast / 544p. / L39?? / Novel]
- まちカドまぞく 1 伊藤 いづも [Fast / 120p. / L35 / Manga]
- 魔性の子 十二国記 0 小野 不由美 [Fast / 491p. / L34 / Novel /
] - 天空への回廊 笹本 稜平 [Fast / 662p. / L30?? / Novel]
- ファイア・ドーム (FIRE DOME) 上 辻村深月 [Fast / 464p. / L32?? / Novel]
- 村上海賊の娘 和田 竜 [Hard / 343p. / L41 / Novel]
- コインロッカーベイビーズ 村上 龍 [Hard / 576p. / L42 / Novel]
- 女坂 円地文子 [Hard / 226p. / L50?? / Novel / ]
0
voters
The poll is over, and after an eternity and a half,
さわらびの譜
won! @pm215 would you like to run the book club for it?
Sadly we have to say good-bye to 女坂 as it scored low for three polls in a row. Which means that we now have even more space for new nominations! 
Sure, I can run this one.
Since we have space for more nominations…
共犯マジック
Author: 北森鴻
Summary
Japanese
人の不幸のみを予言する謎の占い書《フォーチュンブック》。偶然入手した七人の男女は、運命の黒い糸に絡めとられたかのように、それぞれの犯罪に手を染める。錯綜する物語は、やがて驚愕の最終話へ。連作ミステリーの到達点を示す傑作長篇。
English
DeepL:
The Fortune Book is a mysterious tome that foretells only misfortune. Seven men and women who come into its possession by chance find themselves entangled in the black threads of fate, each committing their own crimes. The intricate narrative eventually leads to a shocking conclusion. A masterpiece of a full-length novel that represents the pinnacle of the serialised mystery genre.
Length: 234
Category: Fast
Natively link: 共犯マジック | L30??
Availability
Personal Opinion
I bought this book years ago and would enjoy peer pressure to finally read it.
Pros and Cons for the Book Club
Pros
- A short novel - under 300 pages
- Plot sounds interesting/fun and not a standard murder mystery
- Currently free on Kindle unlimited
Cons
- One of the Amazon reviews literally just says 普通でした
- No audiobook
Pictures
I’ve posted the home thread for our next book: さわらびの譜 Book Club : Starting Oct 3rd! – so we have somewhere to talk about scheduling etc.