Fascinating. I read the Japanese summary first and there was like nearly nothing to go on what this book will be about. Then I opened the English summary and it on the other hand seems to spill nearly all plot points right then and there.
Fascinating to see how the summaries differ with the languages so much, trying to draw the respective readers in…
The other book has this in a lesser form as well. The first part is pretty similar, but the details they choose to describe are soo different.
I actually hesitated posting the English summary in case it was too spoilery. But surely, they can’t be revealing everything? The Japanese summaries on the other hand are way too vague (and some versions were even vaguer). I’ve seen it in other books as well, it’s like the Japanese either get their information from elsewhere, or just pick books semi-blindly, wanting to be surprised as much as possible.
Or, if y’all are looking for something a bit harder, you can have a look at the Advanced Book Club!
What’s the cutoff for making nominations? I can write one up for the book I previously mentioned, but won’t have time until Monday.
Monday is totally fine. I am thinking of starting the poll on Jan 2nd, so even if you get delayed for some reason, you should still be able to get your book in.
Curious to see what you are planning to nominate!
MrGeneric already mentioned the title of the book(s) behind spoiler tags above if you want to know sooner. 
Author: 馳 星周
Page count: 308
Natively: L30??
傷つき、悩み、惑う人びとに寄り添っていたのは、一匹の犬だった――。2011年秋、仙台。震災で職を失った和正は、認知症の母とその母を介護する姉の生活を支えようと、犯罪まがいの仕事をしていた。ある日和正は、コンビニで、ガリガリに痩せた野良犬を拾う。多聞という名らしいその犬は賢く、和正はすぐに魅了された。その直後、和正はさらにギャラのいい窃盗団の運転手役の仕事を依頼され、金のために引き受けることに。そして多聞を同行させると仕事はうまくいき、多聞は和正の「守り神」になった。だが、多聞はいつもなぜか南の方角に顔を向けていた。多聞は何を求め、どこに行こうとしているのか……犬を愛するすべての人に捧げる感涙作!
Auto-translated: It was a dog that was close to people who were hurt, troubled, and confused. In the fall of 2011, Sendai. Kazumasa, who lost his job in the earthquake, was working like a crime to support the life of his mother with dementia and his sister who cared for her mother. One day, Kazumasa picks up a skinny stray dog at a convenience store. The dog, which seems to be famous, was smart, and Kazumasa was immediately fascinated. Immediately after that, Kazumasa was asked to work as a driver of a more good-paid thieves and took on it for the sake of money. And when Tamon was accompanied, the work went well, and Tamon became Kazumasa’s “protective god.” However, Tamon always turned his face in the south direction for some reason. What are you looking for and where are you going… A tearful work dedicated to everyone who loves dogs!
Amazon JP including Kindle version and Audible version
Manga version just for reference
Looks interesting! And I like dogs!
Amazon link above has 40+ pages of sample.
How much effort would you need to read this book?
0 voters
Oh, now 
I followed that discussion but didn’t make the connection yesterday. 
Author: 乙野 四方字
Page count: 253 (bunko) / 209 (kindle)
Natively: 僕が愛したすべての君へ | L29
(From Amazon)
人々が少しだけ違う並行世界間で日常的に揺れ動いていることが実証された時代――両親の離婚を経て母親と暮らす高崎暦(たかさき・こよみ)は、地元の進学校に入学した。勉強一色の雰囲気と元からの不器用さで友人をつくれない暦だが、突然クラスメイトの瀧川和音(たきがわ・かずね)に声をかけられる。彼女は85番目の世界から移動してきており、そこでの暦と和音は恋人同士だというのだが……並行世界の自分は自分なのか?
(From AniList. Seems mostly accurately translated, except the last line for some reason is completely different. 
)
In a world where people regularly travel between slightly different parallel universes, Koyomi Takasaki lives with his mother after his parents’ recent divorce. Awkward and studious, he has trouble making friends at his new school, until his classmate Kazune Takigawa seeks him out. She claims that she’s moved here from another world where she and Takasaki are lovers… But could he be the one who’s actually from a parallel world?
Amazon Paperbook
Kindle
Bookwalker
I read this a few months ago and really enjoyed it. The premise is really cool and I liked the blend of sci-fi and romance. It was also a really easy read (7 days for me), so I think it should be a good difficulty for intermediate book club.
Bookwalker preview or Amazon preview
I recommend reading at least the preview for the first chapter (not just the prologue) since they are a bit different.
Sorry, but I don’t feel like finding some pages with some more of the sci-fi stuff to preview.
How much effort would you need to read this book?
Some notes about this nomination:
Thanks all for your massive list of new proposals! I think I’ve added them all to the list in the OP (but if your nomination is not in that list, please ping me!). Also, we have three more empty slots so if anybody is still sitting on a last-minute nomination, now is the time!
Also, everybody please have a look at the new nominations and see what catches your interest. And please don’t forget to vote for the difficulty!
I will start the next poll on Monday, I think. See you then!
Alright, I promised you a poll since last year, so here it is!
Have a look at the List of Proposed Books section in the first post for details on each book. Every book has a difficulty associated with it (based on book club members voting, thus subjective) out of 5, where 1 means “no effort at all” and 5 means “so much effort my head might explode”. The difficulty is annotated in the poll in square brackets after the book’s name, together with the book’s level on Natively (you can find the links to Natively for all books in the first post if you want to have a look at the gradings in detail).
Do not rely solely on difficulty or Natively level when making a choice. Please have a look at nomination posts if you haven’t already.
Expected reading pace: We aim to read 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.
Short book rule: If the first place ist taken by a pick that will take us 6 weeks or less to read, we will read the one in second place directly after it, without running a poll in between. I haven’t checked in detail, but I’d assume that this basically applies in case one of the manga wins the poll.
Start of Book Club: We will start the next book on Feb 18th (after a one-week break).
Poll duration: I will close the poll within a week (and most likely before that), whenever it looks like voting has dried up. You can choose up to 5 options.
0 voters
Pretty close race so far!
I say “so far”, but it seems like 20 voters is about all we get these days… (I wonder why before last poll we were seeing around 40 voters, but last time and so far this time only around 20.)
Meanwhile, I didn’t help at all since I just voted for the 押しの子 manga that only has four votes and probably no chance of winning. 
We even had a 3-way tie at the top not long ago
I’m quite puzzled by that as well. Maybe it’s the time of year? 
In any case, just now I advertised the voting in the Beginner and Advanced clubs (so far I had only announced them in the Read Every Day and Extensive Reading challenges as I figured they might have the most active readers anyway). If it doesn’t resolve itself in the next 1-2 days, I will close the poll and we will run a tie-breaker poll right after that.
I might be able to resolve the tie, because I do want to read Ogawa (I’ve liked everything of hers I read in English), I just shy away from the hostage element. But it seems it’s just a framing device and not the focus of the story at all? I don’t know, I’m on the fence. It’s very likely I’d join the club if it gets picked, so maybe I should vote for it?
I don’t know that much about the book, but the summary states: … is only very loosely a novel and is composed of a series of essentially distinct stories […] each of the eight hostages recounting a story or memory they had written [during their captivity] so it seems like the core of the book has not much to do with the hostage itself.
Yes, I also read some more reviews and it certainly seems to be a framing device more than anything else. Still not my favourite setting for a story, but it’s Ogawa so I’ll trust her. I added my vote.
I am not a big fan of 人質 situations and I was thinking of reading 僕が愛したすべての君へ at some point anyway, since I’m a sucker for romance, but might give 人質の朗読会 a try if it’s not terribly challenging and attainable.
Thank you! I guess now I need to wait another day, though, as I just announced the poll in the other clubs, and it would be a bit of a d*ck move to announce it and then close it straight away, I guess
I cannot speak for this book, but we read another book of hers in the club and everybody said that her language is pretty straightforward and not difficult to understand.
Which other book was it? And how does it compare to コンビニ人間, for instance?
