I updated the OP + title now that the TUGUMI book club has started, as well as the intermediate section of the Master List of book clubs thread. I hope I didn’t mess up.
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Thank you sooo much! There’s always something I forget when a new book comes around, and the Master List tends to be neglected more often than not 
as was clearly visible 
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I almost forgot to add Spy x Family to previous books, but now that has been taken care of! 
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Just a quick heads up that we will run our next poll from Sept 12th, so if you’d like to submit a proposal, now is the time! 
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砂漠 (さばく a campus life) // WITHDRAWN
Author: 伊坂 幸太郎 | Kōtarō Isaka
Page count: 512
Natively: His other books are L30-L37
Summary
Japanese
この一冊で世界が変わる、かもしれない。仙台市の大学に進学した春、なにごとにもさめた青年の北村は四人の学生と知り合った。少し軽薄な鳥井、不思議な力が使える南、とびきり美人の東堂、極端に熱くまっすぐな西嶋。麻雀に勤(いそ)しみ合コンに励み、犯罪者だって追いかける。一瞬で過ぎる日常は、光と痛みと、小さな奇跡で出来ていた――。明日の自分が愛おしくなる、一生モノの物語。限定の書き下ろしあとがき収録。 (Source: BookWalker)
English
Google Translate:
This book might change the world. In the spring when he entered a university in Sendai City, Kitamura, a young man who had calmed down, met four students. Torii who is a little frivolous, Minami who can use mysterious powers, Toudou who is extremely beautiful, and Nishijima who is extremely hot and straightforward. He devotes himself to mahjong, works hard at joint parties, and chases even criminals. Everyday life that passed by in an instant was made up of light, pain, and small miracles. A lifelong story that will make you love yourself tomorrow. Includes a limited edition postscript.
Availability
Amazon including Kindle and Audible versions | Audiobooks | BookWalker
Personal Opinion
Looks interesting! I am not a very opinionated person (:
Pros and Cons for the Book Club
Pros
- Audiobooks available
- Relatively easy to read among this author’s work
Cons
- Probably a bit long
- Not as much a social commentary as his other work?
Pictures
Pages 1-49 on BookWalker 試し読み
Difficulty Poll
How much effort would you need to read this book?
- No effort at all
- Minimal effort
- Moderate effort
- Significant effort
- So much effort my head might explode
- I don’t know
0 voters
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Thanks for your proposal! Unfortunately 512 pages is way too long for this book club, though
The Intermediate club usually reads at ~15 pages per week which would mean for this book to last about 8 months or so, and that’s just a very long time because those who are not interested or drop out need to wait the whole time.
If you like, you could submit it to the Advanced Book Club though! There we read at a higher pace and can tackle longer books. Just copy your post to the other thread and modify this posting to make clear you withdrew it. Thanks!
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Not a problem. I did think it might be a bit too long (:
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For future reference, the proposal guidelines in the OP say that 350 pages is the max length for nominations.
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I should learn to read better
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Boy, do I have the club for you.
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It’s POLL Timeeeee!
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 October 29th (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.
- きらきらひかる [2.67 / L32??]
- 日本人の知らない日本語 (Manga) [2.4 / L28]
- 天気の子 [2.67 / L31]
- ガイコツ書店員本田さん (Manga) [2.45 / L32??]
- リング [2.67 / L34]
- Just Because! [2.17 / L30??]
- 笑顔のたえない職場です。 (Manga) [2.86 / L29]
- 穴 [2 / L37]
- 人質の朗読会 [2.43 / L30??]
- 死にたいけどトッポッキは食べたい [2.8 / L30??]
- おばちゃんたちのいるところ [2.5 / L31??]
- 嵐のピクニック [3 / L30??]
- 推しの子 (Manga) [2.83 / L31]
0 voters
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Alright, nothing much happened during the last two days, so I’m closing the poll.
Our next winner is
おばちゃんたちのいるところ
@Phryne, are you willing to run the club for this book? It is due to start on October 29th.
For the Bookwalker fans out there, there is currently a 40% coin cashback on basically all books, including this one, until 2022-09-21T00:59:00Z.
Whenever there is light, there is also shadow. And so we have to say goodbye to 笑顔のたえない職場です。and “Just Because!” as they scored low in three subsequent polls. 
Which also means that we now have a lot of space in our proposals list, so please keep them coming!
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Yay! Go for it
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Pinging you in case you’re still interesting in reading this with us 
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Here we go!
Went with a ghost emoji. Feel free to suggest a better one though
Will have a look at the schedule in the coming week. I expect it’ll be a one-story-a-week 17-week schedule though. EDIT: Never mind, the first story is humongous
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We Live in a Society.
The intermediate book club just closed its poll, but if you still feel the itch to vote on something come over to the Beginner book club and have a look at that poll!
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Or, come over to the Advanced Book Club if you feel like upping your game a bit! 
We’re currently voting for our next pick:
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If you’re interested in adding yet another book to your busy reading schedule, come over to the Mystery Novel Book Club at Natively and vote for our next pick. The poll closes on October 17th, and reading starts at Halloween! 
(only a couple of days after the IBC’s next pick, おばちゃんたちのいるところ!)
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