Intermediate Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: セーラー服と機関銃

Oh yeah almost forgot, since we’ve begun this book we have to start choosing the next book. Shall we recycle the old options and/or start pitching new books?

Bit of both? Keep the 2-3 runner ups, rest new?

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Alright then, that would be these books.

So I will automatically include them in the next poll. I’m also thinking of re pitching Door D. To everyone else please look at this list of books, and if you want to include one in the poll please re pitch it yourself. And any other book you have in mind please pitch. If you could pitch it like the books in the last link, saying what it’s about, pros/cons, and an estimate of its difficulty is not required but appreciated.

I’m going to wait a week(or two?), to put the poll up, please leave your suggestions before then.

Lastly, if any one wants to give a good pitch for the books that will be automatically added, please do so.(They don’t have one right now)

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Book pitch

Title: 赤い悪夢 (5分後に意外な結末)
Japanese level: I dunno my middle schoolers read it. I read the first two stories with little to no difficulty and I don’t read much.


Synopsis: An anthology of short stories that are in the horror/mystery/SF genre. They are generaly suppose to take 5 minutes to read for a native Japanese person. This is the blurb from Amazon Japan:
SF、ホラー、ミステリー。くすっと笑える話、ぞっとする話、感動する話。ページにして数ページ、5分程度の時間で読めて、最後に「あっと驚くドンデン返し」。そんなショートショートを集めたアンソロジー。、朝読にも最適な一冊。

Why it might be a good choice:

  • As they are short stories, they are easier to read, also more chances to feel accomplished after every small story.

-The first two stories were interesting, and it has good reviews.

-first two stories had easy Japanese, so I assume more of it does.

-Some stories will be familier as the second story is the I think famous, " monkey’s paw."

Why it might be a bad choice:

-some stories will be familier.

-other reasons I am not sure about?

amazon listing

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Oh my! Today arrived so fast, and I’ve had a suddenly (and surprisingly) busy weekend. If it’s not yet made, I’m still happy to do so. If someone else has made it, I thank you.

Apologies to everyone. ごめん m(_ _;)m

And now I’m already a day behind in my reading as well. Sheesh. Meant to get it set up on Friday and start early, too.

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Okay!
So the thread isn’t quite as organized as I’d like (since I rushed it on my phone), but here it is: JBC's 秋の牢獄 (Autumn Prison) Discussion Thread

I’ve already linked it up in the OP, as well.

Planned edits to add tomorrow: the rest of the discussion leaders, and the dates of which reading portion is to be done when (fiddling with Kumirei’s table).

There’s more that I’m forgetting at the moment because it’s late…

Including a picture of the book, author name, etc.

EDIT: also please remind me @LucasDesu, we did decide on one of those chunks a week, not every two weeks, correct? Please tell me if I’m wrong - it’ll matter when I fix the schedule table tomorrow.

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Yes, it’s one chunk a week. Thank you for setting the thread up!

Thanks for confirming!

No, I was i̶m̶p̶a̶t̶i̶e̶n̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶ patiently waiting for you all day :blush: Lol, thanks for coming through!

Ok! I have added myself to the list and I am going to try my hardest to keep up with this one. I figure it may be good help for N2 study…

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Hope it’s ok I post this question here:

I’ve decided to read the current book on the Kindle desktop/iOS apps – it’s very cool that it has J-J and E-J dictionaries built in, but…

I can’t get either of them to look up conjugated words, and I can’t get them to let me copy words to paste into another app. I must be doing something wrong?

e.g. I wanted to look up 薄ら寒くなった – selecting it in kindle shows nothing for either dictionary. I can choose “copy,” but when I go to paste that into Midori on iOS, it pastes some kind of nonsense url. On mac desktop, there’s nothing to paste.

Also, can you only search those dictionaries in Kindle by selecting a word that exists in the text? I can’t figure out a way to make it let me just type something into the dictionary.

Any ideas?

No, I’ve the same problem with conjugated forms.
On my ipad copy and pasting is fine, but on the desktop you have to highlight it, and then press copy from the bar that appears. If you try a short cut or to right click it un highlights. Does this help?

Also, I use imiwa for ios and it automatically looks it up for me when I enter the app with copied text. So you don’t have to copy/paste, just copy and double click over.

Interesting… when I hit that “copy” button on desktop, this is what it copies:

薄ら寒く なっ た。

恒川 光太郎. 秋の牢獄 (角川ホラー文庫) (Kindle Location 24). . Kindle Edition.

bizarre.

I guess I can just delete that whole line of text every time, but wow annoying.

edit: omg also? It puts spaces between each character. I see now why you had spaces between the characters in your post from before!

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Same, I guess they’re afraid of you posting it somewhere without sources it, but it doesn’t do that with ios I think

Ohh, so that’s what @downtimes meant when they said they didn’t understand why I broke the words up. I didn’t notice, nor did I know what they were talking about lol

I found a semi-workaround for the desktop app:

If you select something and choose “search this book,” it populates a search bar with what you selected, and doesn’t add the citation. The spaces are still there though… :confused:

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Title: ナナブンノイチ (One in Seven)
Japanese Level: Similar to Autumn Prison

image

Synopsis: Seems to be a tale about a band of fraudsters / con artists planning an operation - with some double crossing intrigue going on between the members. Don’t know for sure about this book, but in general the author is known for having a comic style to his writing.

Why it would be a good choice:
-I’ve read a couple of this guy’s books already and they’re both easy and fun to read
-Standalone book with paperback and kindle editions available
-Best reviewed work in a popular looking franchise (main criticism of his books by natives appears to be that the writing is too simplistic - which should be music to our ears!)
-Departure from previous books
-…has a cool cover?

Why it might not be a good choice:
-Difficulty - dependent on how people find Autumn Prison
-His other books - while nowhere close to gritty - do feature a fair amount of sex and violence, and this looks like being no exception

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Why is this listed as bad :wink:
Nah, I know, there might be some youngsters and sensitive people =)
IT’s good that it’s mentioned so people are aware when voting =)

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Added a list of proposed books to the OP

Proposed Books

List
Titlethismakesthecolumnwiderthismakesthecolumnwiderthismakesthecolumnwiderthismakesthecolumnwiderthismakesthecolumnwiderthismakesthecolumnwiderthismakesthecolumnwiderthismakesthecolumnwiderthismakesthecolumnwiderthismakesthecolumnwiderthismakesthecolumnwiderthismakesthecolumnwider Level Synopsis Pitch Store Link
ナナブンノイチ
One in Seven
☆☆ Seems to be a tale about a band of fraudsters / con artists planning an operation - with some double crossing intrigue going on between the members. Don’t know for sure about this book, but in general the author is known for having a comic style to his writing. Post Amazon
赤い悪夢 (5分後に意外な結末) ☆☆ An anthology of short stories that are in the horror/mystery/SF genre. They are generaly suppose to take 5 minutes to read for a native Japanese person. This is the blurb from Amazon Japan: SF、ホラー、ミステリー。くすっと笑える話、ぞっとする話、感動する話。ページにして数ページ、5分程度の時間で読めて、最後に「あっと驚くドンデン返し」。そんなショートショートを集めたアンソロジー。、朝読にも最適な一冊 Post Amazon
ドアD
Door D
☆☆ Yuna and her 7 university tennis club friends were kidnapped and woke up in an unknown room. With only one locked door, and water filling into the room fast, they must figure out a way to escape before they all drown.

There’s a lever that opens the door. But it only holds the door open while pulled. One person will have to remain.

And this is just the start. Through a series of death trap rooms, and chances of survival slim, each other’s humanity will be tested. Will the group make it out alive? Will anyone make it out alive? And what awaits upon getting through the final door?

Post Amazon
秋の牢獄
Autumn Prison
☆☆ We all have thought at one point what it would be like to live the same day over and over again. The possibilities, the ramifications, the fear, Bill Murray… Ai has just stepped into that world. She has entered into repeats of a fine Autumn day. Every day resets at exactly 11:30PM, where she wakes up the same day.

It doesn’t take Ai much time to give up hope, as she sits in utter loneliness on a bench at her university. The bench she’s sat at for the past 25 repeats in a row.

Until something new happens. Ryuichi approaches her and tells her to come with him to a meeting place in the park. There he introduces himself and others to her. They are “Replayers,” and she is not alone. A group of 20+ Replayers gather every day at the park, to share in the experience. Some have been replaying for only a few days. Others have been there for hundreds.

Replayers start disappearing. It could just be that they decided to leave the group, but the appearance of a wandering white figure, referred to them as the “White Nobleman” starts to trouble them. All the Replayers have seen his appearance as he wanders around the city. His mysterious, ghost like figure is only visible to them.

What is his identity, and is he behind these possible disappearances? More importantly though, is there any way out of this repetitive cycle?

Post Amazon
ネガティブハッピー・チェーンソーエッヂ
Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge
- This is by the same author as Welcome to the NHK and seems to contain some similar themes. However, it has a Kindle edition and is aimed at a youth audience so ought not to feature some of the more questionable content some people were worried about.

Story is about a high school boy who is riding home on his bike one day and comes across a girl fighting a man wielding a chainsaw. From what I can understand this is not really explained and is more a representation of the boy’s desire to find someone to ‘save’. The two team up and form a bond while the girl continues her nightly fights.

Post Amazon
アフターダーク
After Dark
- Murakami’s shortest and probably easiest to read work. Set over the course of a single night and the first (I believe) of his novels not to be written from a first-person 僕 perspective, this centres on two sisters - one asleep in a mysterious room and viewed through a camera, the other out and about in Tokyo where she encounters various unusual characters including a jazz musician and a love hotel manager. Post Amazon
Classics Club - Oreki Houtarou is a self-proclaimed “energy-saver”—that is, he refuses to actively waste energy doing things that aren’t necessary. Though he had no interest whatsoever in participating in any clubs upon entering Kamiyama High School, he was commanded by his older sister, Tomoe, to join the club she was once a part of, the Classics Club, as it was in danger of being abolished due to its nonexistent member count. Together with his old friends Fukube Satoshi and Ibara Mayaka, as well as with the elegantly ladylike and curiously inquisitive Chitanda Eru, the newly reformed Classics Club ends up finding themselves involved in all sorts of mystery-solving escapades. Houtarou quickly learns that life in the Classics Club, just as Tomoe had promised, would be an interesting one indeed. And so begins the “Classics Club Series”. Post -
キノの旅 - Kino wanders around the world on the back of Hermes, her unusual, anthropomorphic motorcycle, and discovers that the world’s imperfections hold its true beauty. Post Amazon
はたらく魔王さま - Do you want fries with your hellfire?

Being soundly thrashed by the hero Emilia, the Devil King and his general beat a hasty retreat to a parallel universe…only to land smack in the middle of bustling, modern-day Tokyo! Lacking the magic necessary to return home, the two are forced to assume human identities and live average human lives until they can find a better solution. And to make ends meet, Satan finds gainful employment at a nearby fast food joint! With his devilish mind set on working his way up the management food chain, what will become of his thirst for conquest?!

Post Amazon
ほしのこえ - In this timeless, interstellar love story, the power of love must conquer the distance of outer space. Rated for teens. Post Amazon
魔女の宅急便 - Kiki is a resourceful, spunky girl who follows her maternal tradition to be a witch. She possesses only one gift of witchcraft – the power to fly. Like all young witches, she sets out at age 12 to find a town of her own. With her ever-present companion Jiji – a cynical and faithful black cat – Kiki departs on her broomstick and arrives at a big town near the ocean. Though nervous at first, she soon sets up a business delivering packages.

Kiki meets all kinds of people and has many adventures. She befriends the thief who stole her broomstick and saves the town’s traditional New Year’s marathon with some courageous and timely flying.

Throughout, Kiki’s confidence and self-awareness grows as she learns to value her unique talents. And with Kiki’s help, the townspeople realize that everyone has some magic that gives them their own special character and vitality.

This is a charming and delightful tale that is reminiscent of children’s favorites The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy and Astrid Lindgren’s Adventures of Pippi Longstocking. Black and white line drawings sprinkled throughout reveal the humor and warmth in everything Kiki does.

Post Amazon
君の名は - Mitsuha, a high school girl living in a small town in the mountains, has a dream that she’s a boy living in Tokyo. Taki, a high school boy in Tokyo, dreams he’s a girl living in a quaint little mountain town. Sharing bodies, relationships, and lives, the two become inextricably interwoven–but are any connections truly inseverable in the grand tapestry of fate?

Written by director MAKOTO SHINKAI during the production of the film by the same title, your name. is in turns funny, heartwarming, and heart-wrenching as it follows the struggles of two young people determined to hold on to one another.

Post Amazon
怒り - A grisly unsolved murder links three seemingly unrelated people in three different Japanese cities. Post Amazon
クリムゾンの迷宮 - From a rising new star of horror comes a killer read that will make you lose track of time and reality. The Crimson Labyrinth is a wicked satire on extremist reality TV in the tradition of The Running Man-if that indeed is what it is. Welcome to THE MARS LABYRINTH where things aren’t what they seem. Welcome to the world of Kishi, where the plot is as gnarly as the humor is twisted. When an unemployed former math major wakes up one day, he wonders if he’s somehow ended up on the red planet. The good-looking young woman with aid-she says her name is Ai and that she draws erotic comics for a living-seems to have no clue either as to their whereabouts. Their only leads are cryptic instructions beamed to a portable device. Has the game begun? There is no reset button, no saving and no continue-make the wrong move and it’s really GAME OVER. In the cruel world of THE MARS LABYRINTH, mercy and compassion are only for the weak or the very, very strong. The stakes are nothing less than your life-and apparently a lot of money. If you’re a fan of Lost or Battle Royale, don’t miss this one Post Amazon
やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている - Hachiman Hikigaya is a cynic. “Youth” is a crock, he believes–a sucker’s game, an illusion woven from failure and hypocrisy. But when he turns in an essay for a school assignment espousing this view, he’s sentenced to work in the Service Club, an organization dedicated to helping students with problems in their lives! How will Hachiman the Cynic cope with a job that requires–gasp!–optimism? Post Amazon
時をかける少女 - One of Tsutsui’s best-known and most popular works in his native Japan, The Girl Who Leapt through Time is the story of fifteen-year-old schoolgirl Kazuko, who accidentally discovers that she can leap back and forth in time. In her quest to uncover the identity of the mysterious figure that she believes to be responsible for her paranormal abilities, she’ll have to push the boundaries of space and time, and challenge the notions of dream and reality. Post Amazon
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Ah… my copy of Autumn Prison finally came today, which is much better than I expected! Serves me right for only paying for SAL.

Anyway, gonna start reading and pop over to the other thread now.

先輩たち、よろしくお願いします。

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Wow kumirei, this is so nice! Thanks a lot ^^