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: 怪人二十面相 (Jan 4th) ?
Now reading: 国宝（上）
Start Date: Nov 15th, 2025
Next: BUTTER
Start Date: Jan 31st, 2026
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. さわらびの譜
4. 風が強く吹いている
5. 占星術殺人事件
6. まちカドまぞく (Manga)
7. 魔性の子
8. 天空への回廊
Category 2: harder reading, slower pace
1. コインロッカーベイビーズ
2. 女坂
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
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 | Poll 19 | 2024-12-23 |
| 文字渦 | Poll 17 | Poll 18 | Poll 19 | 2024-12-23 |
| 少年H 上巻 | Poll 22 | Poll 23 | Poll 24 | 2025-12-19 |
| まちカドまぞく 1 | Poll 23 | Poll 24 | ||
| 村上海賊の娘 | Poll 23 | Poll 24 | ||
| クォンタムデビルサーガ アバタールチューナーⅠ | Poll 23 | Poll 24 | ||
| さわらびの譜 | Poll 24 |
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.
