L51??? Never seen that before 
Good luck 
11 Likes
The 香君 read-through has now wrapped up; somebody with the permissions to update this thread’s title might like to set it to “Now reading: 硝子の塔の殺人”.
9 Likes
'Tis done.
10 Likes
Forgot to write here that 硝子の塔の殺人 has started!
5 Likes
In case any ABC members are interested in joining us - there is a poll running for the next read in the 小川洋子 book club over on Natively 小川洋子 （おがわようこ) Book club [Now voting for the next read] - #35 by domjcw - Book Clubs - Natively Forums
6 Likes
We’re going to start reading 密やかな結晶 by 小川洋子 (English title “The Memory Police”) starting next month over on Natively (intermediate pace - should be compatible with other book clubs, depending on how many you are doing…). If any ABC members are interested, do join us! 密やかな結晶 (小川洋子 Book Club) - Book Clubs - Natively Forums
8 Likes
Our current pick will be finished soon-ish, and so we are looking for fresh nominations again! If you want to propose something for the next poll, now would be a very good time 
I will probably start the next poll on Sept 29th, to give you a timeframe. Looking forward to interesting new nominations!
13 Likes
It has come to my attention (by reading it) that 攻殻機動隊 1 has some VERY mature content (I would even go as far as to say pornographic).
I feel like it wasn’t a big issue for 蛇にピアス because unless you could read Japanese, you couldn’t tell. But here is it a manga, very visual and very very NSFW, so I feel a bit uncomfortable with the nomination.
What do you think? Can it stay anyway? Or should there be at least a warning in the nomination post?
11 Likes
Maybe put this in the nomination post as a warning ?
6 Likes
I’ll go ahead and nominate something; it’s been a while.
魔性の子
Author: 小野 不由美
Summary
Japanese
どこにも、僕のいる場所はない──教育実習のため母校に戻った広瀬は、高里という生徒が気に掛かる。周囲に馴染まぬ姿が過ぎし日の自分に重なった。彼を虐(いじ)めた者が不慮の事故に遭うため、「高里は祟(たた)る」と恐れられていたが、彼を取り巻く謎は、“神隠し”を体験したことに関わっているのか。広瀬が庇おうとするなか、更なる惨劇が……。心に潜む暗部が繙(ひもと)かれる、「十二国記」戦慄の序章。
English
(DeepL translation) There’s no place for me anywhere—Hirose, returning to his alma mater for teaching practice, finds himself drawn to a student named Takasato. The boy’s inability to fit in mirrored his own past self. Those who bullied Takasato met with unexpected accidents, leading to the fear that “Takasato is cursed.” But are the mysteries surrounding him connected to his experience of being “taken by the gods”? As Hirose tries to protect him, further tragedy strikes… The dark recesses of the heart are laid bare in this chilling prologue to The Twelve Kingdoms.
Length: 491 pages
Category: Easier/faster
Natively link: 魔性の子 十二国記 0 | L34
Availability
Physical book: Amazon.co.jp: 魔性の子 十二国記 0 (新潮文庫) : 小野 不由美, 山田 章博: Japanese Books
(No ebook available)
Personal Opinion
It’s the one, the only, the “0” book in the 十二国記 series. My understanding is this was written before 十二国記 was picked up as a series proper, so my hope is that it can act as a standalone. It’s unfortunately still physical-only, but an audiobook was recently released (as well as for the other 十二国記 books, if anyone was waiting for them). Plus it has horror/mystery vibes? Which is a combination I’m interested in.
Pros and Cons for the Book Club
Pros
- There’s an audiobook.
- It probably shouldn’t end on a cliffhanger or anything as book 0.
Cons
- There’s no ebook, unfortunately.
Pictures
(Taken from my copy of the book)
12 Likes
I would remove it, personally. Maybe ABC can/should be different, but we’ve generally tried to keep the book clubs family friendly and safe for work.
11 Likes
Yes, I’m also leaning towards removing it.
I mean, 蛇にピアス was not family friendly either, but for me a description of, say, a sex scene in literature for the sake of describing what happens, and a pornographic presentation (whose intention is to arouse the reader) are two very different things, and in this club I am ok with the first one but not with the second.
Now with manga it’s hard to stay clear from the latter due to the nature of images 
and so maybe it’s better to remove it, is my thinking.
Especially since you read it already @Akashelia, the intention you had when nominating it is now fulfilled even without the club 
.
Taking all this into account, would you be ok with removing it? (You can leave the nomination post as it is, I would just take it off of the list.)
12 Likes
It has been a while, so I think I would like to add another piece of “older” literature:
鍵
Author: 谷崎 潤一郎 (たにざき じゅんいちろう)
Summary
I could not really find a summary, but I started to read it at some point, and all I remember is that it seems to be a diary written by a married couple, where they take turns in writing the entries, and the fun thing is that he writes in (kanji and) katakana while she writes in (kanji and) hiragana. No idea about the contents though…
Length: 140
Category: Hard
Natively link: 鍵 | L40??
Availability
Personal Opinion
I found this katakana writing style to be mind-boggling when I started to read, and I thought some of you might enjoy it as well.
Pros and Cons for the Book Club
Pros
- Famous author, thus supposed to be good quality writing
- Good practice for reading katakana
- Written in 1956, thus no struggle with old kana and such
Cons
- May be hard to read due to contents and due to katakana
14 Likes
FYI This one is mainly about NSFW things (like many other 谷崎 潤一郎). I read it in translation a while ago, so I don’t remember the exact details.
9 Likes
I eyeballed the first あらすじ to come up and Google and based on the descriptions on these bullet points… Yes 
谷崎潤一郎『鍵』 あらすじ | 宇美の文学
7 Likes
Hm ok I see, thanks for the heads-up! Gonna eat my own dogfood and replace it with a different one 
(and maybe do some more research up-front 
)
9 Likes
It absolutely can! There’s no cliffhanger at the end, it’s just a bit open ended. It’s written really nicely, too, so definitely something I’d recommend. I’m planning to continue the series next year at the latest. 
If anyone is worried about the horror: it’s there, but really mild. If I can handle it, I’m sure most anyone here could too. 
I think 谷崎 in general tends towards those themes. If it’s anything like 痴人の愛 it won’t be very titillating, but I know nothing about 鍵…
7 Likes
I don’t mind the nomination getting removed, since it sounded too hard for me anyway and I wouldn’t have voted for it.
But I see that some of you censored individual words associated with NSFW stuff, so I just wanted to ask if that’s an official rule on this club. Just in case I ever need to use some.
5 Likes
Not that I know of, but I didn’t feel comfortable writing it in clear, just thinking if people arrive on my profile by typing that in a search engine for example, or I don’t know if there is content moderation on the forum, this kind of things
7 Likes