5 months sounds a bit long now, but probably not anymore when I’m drowning in book clubs later this year 
I wonder why in my digital copy the text is horizontal… It’s easy to change but I just wonder if it’s intentional. I remember seeing the books in tategaki in Japan, though. I am a bit worried for the eventual JLPT since I never read horizontal text and find it quite bothersome 
Maybe I should just leave it for practice…
I don’t use discord so no reading for me…
Mine is also tategaki. Yeah up to N2 there was a lot of horizontal text. I don’t actually recall any tategaki even on N2, but that might just be my spotty memory.
Also, minna no nihongo doesn’t start with it until the second intermediate textbook.
How did you get a digital copy? Maybe I can add a note to the OP on how to get it.
Let’s just say better not put it there 
Crabinprisonment for you! 
Kind of had a feeling… 
I read it when I was N2, and while I did need a fair amount of dictionary look ups, the grammar and sentence structure was straightforward. It was my second (and third and fourth…) Japanese book ever too, so I assume that N3 is indeed going to be a good baseline for not having a rough time.
Ah… this book in on my bucketlist - but I stand no chance as of now (maybe next year). I may lurk though.
If you’ve got the book already, why not at least join for the first chapter. You might find it’s doable somehow, Rik!
I do find that if you really want something, you can sometimes make it work - but this would just frustrate. I’ll stick to my easier reading material for now. At least this might put a little fire back in my grammar studies - I need that if I want to read these types of books.
I noticed that the mentioned 347 pages corresponds to the paperback book 1 part 1 (each of the 3 books seems to have been split into 2 volumes in the paperback edition). The hardcover versions I saw were 500+ pages each.
I found the ISBNs for the Japanese editions, in case people have a rough time finding non-translated versions. Have not found Japanese e-book versions yet.
| 1Q84 ISBN-13 | hardcover | paperback |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 978-4103534228 | part 1: 978-4101001593, part 2: 978-4101001609 |
| 2 | 978-4103534235 | part 3: 978-4101001616, part 4: 978-4101001623 |
| 3 | 978-4103534259 | part 5: 978-4101001630, part 6: 978-4101001647 |
Depending on which version you have, there might be more than 12 chapters in book “one” .
That is true, there is another 12 chapters in book 2 of volume 1 I believe. I went off the one that has 6 volumes which is the one I own. And also the one that seems a bit more inviting because it’s not quite as long. 
Definitely something I should have mentioned! Good catch. ^^
Murakami has somewhat of a disliking for ebooks and that’s why there’s not a lot of his books available in that format. So, yeah. There’s sadly no official ebook version of 1Q84 available. 
Adding this to the OP, thanks, Rik!
I’ll get the digital copy and try to read along. I’ve been curious for a while about this one. 
Great! I’ll try this then 
I ordered book 1 part 1 today which I should receive in the next couple of weeks. I’ll just order the books ad-hoc since it won’t be starting for about a month.
Great to hear!
I got my copy today and I’m not sure what I expected but I was surprised not only by how cute it was but also that the text is vertical.
How cute
I’ve yet to see a novel with horizontal text.
So people, we’ll be starting in a couple weeks, pretty excited! @zyoeru got the books in, so we have a good group of 9 or 10 readers reading along, looking forward to getting to know you guys a bit, and discussing Japanese with you!
So we settled on a pace of about two weeks per chapter. Since August starts on a Saturday, I’ll start a thread for a new chapter on every other Saturday, starting August 1st. But I’ll of course still be paying attention to the previous threads.
I plan on starting every thread with an translation/explanation of the chapter title. I would like to see how our collective thoughts on that changes as we progress through the chapter. Also I paln to add a (spoiler tagged) story-up-to-now type summary at the start of every chapter from chapter 3. Mainly as a refresher of where our protagonist is at that point (since the book alternatively focusses on two characters, 青豆 and 天吾).
As I saw mentioned in another thread, maybe it is good to be aware that there will be sexual themes, and themes of murder in this story. So definitely for adults! We will be discussing these themes as questions arise, but we’ll still have to be respectful of forum rules, of course.
Thanks for reading along with me, and see you in the reading threads soon!