[Looking for Nominations!] Beginner Japanese Book Club // Starting Soon: Death Note

[NicoleRauch]

I’m going to close nominations this weekend.

Uh-oh… checks calendar

I think generally, in terms of usefulness, I found Toki wo kakeru shoujo much more useful than the manga we’ve read.

Totally agree with you, I also prefer written text to manga.

時をかける少女 feels very manageable as books go, but it’s certainly considerably harder than Yotsuba!

For me it is just the other way around Manga texts are oral speech only, and as such they are the way people speak: slurred, slang, incomplete sentences and so on (especially Yotsuba ). I find that much harder to understand.

So, having said that… I would like to nominate:

おおかみこどもの雨と雪 Light Novel, slice of life ebookwalker
It’s about a young student who falls in love with a werewolf (he’s really nice though) - they have two children (called 雨 and 雪) together and the story is basically about the children growing up. Which is slightly more exciting than raising “normal” human children…
The book is 2nd place in the FloFlo wishlist, so maybe the vocab list will be available there at some point…

And, @QuackingShoe, what about nominating the book we recently discussed in the FloFlo thread? I would be interested to read that one.

Finally, to embrace all the manga lovers out there, I might make up my mind to nominate the キノの旅 manga… ebookwalker
There seem to be only 3 manga in the series, so there’s hope we won’t get stuck on that one for eternity…

[NicoleRauch]

I think “old hard-to-read folk tale” is literally the reason why it’s in the public domain

At least in Germany it takes 70 years for the author’s rights to be removed, and so books won’t be able to enter the public domain before that period. (Don’t know about the rest of the world, though.)

[seanblue]

Please make your nomination using the format in the first post.

Also, since we have already nominated the キノの旅 light novel, I think we should avoid the manga. I think it would get too confusing.

[QuackingShoe]

Ooh, I like the wolf children nomination. Nice idea.

And, noooo waaayyy on 沙弥香. I was wrong. I’ve actually been looking for some opportunity to say so without derailing somewhere. I said in the flo flo thread that it seemed pretty easy, judging by the first few pages. It was a trap.
Usually I consider the first few pages to be some of the hardest in a book (because of all the narrative setup they tend to do), but not this time. I’m still reading it and enjoying it, but I wouldn’t recommend it for here at all.

Side note: every author has their favorite words, like ぼんやり in 時をかける少女. For that reason, I will now never forget 一瞥. 一瞥 everywhere. There is no ちらっと, only 一瞥.

[seanblue]

Ugh, おおかみこどもの雨と雪 is long too. 244 pages.

[NicoleRauch]

おおかみこどもの雨と雪

Light novel, slice-of-life

Summary

It’s about a young student who falls in love with a werewolf (he’s really nice though) - they have two children (called 雨 and 雪) together and the story is basically about the children growing up. Which is slightly more exciting than raising “normal” human children…

Availability

amazon.jp - this is the version with furigana but there are others as well
ebookwalker
ebookjapan

Personal Opinion

Pros and Cons for the Book Club

Pros

• I’ve watched the anime some time ago, and while I did not really understand much back then, I recognized quite a number of the words. To find out more about the difficulty level, I just read the first two pages, and I’d say they were definitely simpler (grammar-wise) than 時をかける少女. Of course that might be different later on (e.g. I know from the anime that there is some decent keigo communication going on at some point), but in general I expect the book to be quite accessible to many.
• The book is 2nd place in the FloFlo wishlist, so maybe the vocab list will be available there at some point…

Cons

• I don’t know if the topic is appealing to everybody; it is basically a story about how two children grow up and find their place in the world. There are some interesting twists and difficulties in general and due to the fact that they are wolf children, of course, but it’s not like the action-packed superhero manga or something.
• amazon.jp states that it has 270 pages…

Pictures

These are screenshots from the ebook (the edition with full furigana). I guess the pages of the physical book are much smaller.

First Three Pages of Chapter One

Additional Pages

Difficulty Poll

How much effort would you need to read this book?

• No effort at all
• Minimal effort
• Just right
• Challenging
• Impossible, even with everyone’s help
• I don’t know (please click this if you’re not voting seriously)

[QuackingShoe]

some decent keigo communication going on

You have my attention

[Radish8]

For me it is just the other way around

Hmmm, I half agree. I definitely found Yotsuba hard for that exact reason, and my least favourite manga have been the ones featuring lots of ‘corrupted’ and casual speech. But there are some simple manga with nice clear sentences, and the pictures help enormously. The sheer density of a book’s text compared to a manga just makes it so much more of a challenge for a beginner, with the unique challenge of long and convoluted sentences.

The book is 2nd place in the FloFlo wishlist, so maybe the vocab list will be available there at some point…

Raionus tends to add the book club picks anyway because he’s lovely.

But yeah, if it’s 244 pages that will be too much for the book club

@seanblue I reckon I could probably trim down the proposal guidelines a bit without losing the key points; do you want me to have a bash at them or do you want to just leave them be?

[Kyayna]

I’m also definitely up for reading the short stories. I’ve got the Kadokawa version, not sure what version everyone that’s reading them has.

I’ve found so much more satisfaction in reading 時をかける少女 that I want to simply read light novels/books for awhile.

Yeah that’s me exactly. I never thought I could make it through an actual book front to back (and, to be fair, I haven’t yet since we haven’t finished), but reading 時をかける少女 is a real winning moment for me. I’m an avid reader anyway and half learnt English that way, so getting to the point where I can use it as a study tool was really important to me.
I really want to hone in on that ability, which is why I totally agree, would love to stick to light novels/books for now too.

I also haven’t looked into possible books to read, but I probably will soon, regardless of what happens in the next vote.

I’m not exactly the target membership of a beginner’s book club

If it means reading another book, I’ll read any book with you and suffer through the consequences (namely, probably not understanding a word without looking it up) xD

You have my attention

Mine too. I never quite got the hang of keigo and seeing it used written in a context I enjoy (aka a book) might actually be super helpful

[QuackingShoe]

244 pages

20 pages a week lets go

Probably because of my anime and manga background, I actually find casual, rough speech almost easier. Also on the rare occassion I think things in Japanese, it’s invariably that kind of Japanese.

I’ll read any book with you

[seanblue]

@seanblue I reckon I could probably trim down the proposal guidelines a bit without losing the key points; do you want me to have a bash at them or do you want to just leave them be?

Is there something you wanted to change in particular? You’re welcome to propose a new template if you want. Just post it here and get feedback before editing it in the main post.

[seanblue]

20 pages a week lets go

I think I would die…

[Kyasurin]

I’ve seen キッチン recommended as a beginner book and amazon says it has 200 pages

I’ll back this, as I already have a copy!

[Radish8]

Just the guidelines, not the template - I just thought people might be able to catch the main points better if we cut the text down a little. I’ll have a bash at it this weekend and post it here to see what people think.

[seanblue]

Oh, sure. I don’t care much what you change with that.

[NicoleRauch]

Oh, could you please add one thing to the guidelines? It was not clear to me where people usually get the contents pictures from… I ended up screenshotting my ebook as I own it already; but is the standard procedure to screenshot the “give it a try” pages in the various bookstores? Or is there something else I’m missing?
Thx

[kodvin]

Personally i am a bit ttorn between books and manga. For manga you could read nore dificult content because you can rely on images for context. But its harder because you either read 2 pages of ‘nani, masaka’ and then a wall of text with all new vocab. But with simple books you get a lot of reading, repetitio of new words. That is why i like toki o kakeru shoujo. 10th chapter was pretty easy but it helps cement grammar and start reading without literal translation.

[lantana]

I’ve also been reading along with 時をかける少女 (my first time in the book club) and have been enjoying reading a book. I know for me that manga is something I prefer to sit and allow myself to just enjoy the story, getting the gist and picking up unknown things from context and the images. But it has been really helpful to read this book and all the comments to work out any tricky grammar.

I’d prefer a book again but if it’s a manga I may join in anyway just for the community.

[hachiken]

0th chapter was pretty easy but it helps cement grammar and start reading without literal translation.

It has been somewhat consistent in style and I get what you say about manga but Aria has been quite good from a readability perspective. The chapters/stories aren’t too complex but I feel I get good reading exercise from it.

if it’s a manga I may join in anyway just for the community.

You’re always welcome to join the Aria book club.
Even though we’re on to volume 3, I think the plot would be easy to follow if you want to skip some of the earlier chapters.

[twktg]

I will skip any manga if it’s selected but will join any book if it’s selected. I just don’t enjoy manga.