Not a fluke; it’s just that I’m no longer a regular (and also not the owner of the OP) so I am always dependent on some regular to come along and change it. So: Thanks a lot!
9 Likes
We could get a mod to change ownership of the OP to you if you’re interested in that.
7 Likes
I thought about this a couple of times, but every time I thought “who knows for how long I will keep running this club” 
So I guess it’s about time 
@Mods could you please make me the owner of this thread’s OP? And also the owner of the Advanced Book Club’s OP: Advanced Japanese Book Club // Now reading: 国宝（上）// Next: BUTTER (Jan 31st, 2026)
as I am in charge of both of them. Thanks! 
21 Likes
Done for both! You are now owner of both threads. Seeing as the previous owners are very significantly gone, it seems fine to me. Enjoy the book clubs, everyone!
20 Likes
Thank you 
6 Likes
If you’re looking for something easier to read, or you’re a fan of Moomin, the Children’s Novel Club is now voting on the next pick!
6 Likes
Wow who knew such things were possible! Perhaps setting a precedent for the future running of these clubs. It was a pain when I was running the absolute beginners book club and had to ask a regular every time I wanted to update the thread title.
@NicoleIsEnough, I wondered if we should put something in the OP to acknowledge the original person who set up the club now that their avatar is no longer there. Or maybe all these clubs should have a section in the OP that records for posterity the people who have taken on the role of book club organiser over the years.
Also, at some point we need an extension to the date the thread will automatically close.
9 Likes
Isn’t it “One year after the last reply”? Or is there another mechanism?
2 Likes
I think it’s on a ten year countdown from when the thread was set up.
3 Likes
Yah, the fact that it’s a year left until it closes makes it look like the default of “a year after last reply”, but those threads actually say “This topic will close a year after the last reply.” It’s ten years after this particular board was changed to having ten-year threads, though (the thread itself is about twelve and a half years old).
How did we hit the ten-year mark already?
Edit: Aha, we’re not quite there yet - there’s just some pretty generous rounding-off happening. If you hover over the little clock symbol, it tells you exactly when it’s going to close the thread.
That’s a couple of days less than eighteen months, therefore it rounds down to a year.
7 Likes
They changed their username because they wanted nothing to do with WaniKani anymore. At least for the intermediate club. So I don’t think it’s necessary or a good idea to reference them.
5 Likes
@Mods Apparently when we asked (a long while ago) to change the automatic close date for book clubs from 1 year to 10 years, it was set up incorrectly. It’s supposed to be “10 years after the last reply”, not “10 years from topic creation”. This impacts every topic in Japanese Language > Book Clubs (or at least all the ones created since the rule was changed, which is most of them). Can someone update not just the default but all the current threads so they don’t just close on us suddenly?
FYI, Japanese Language > Reading seems to be set up the way we’d expect Japanese Language > Book Clubs to work.
12 Likes
Yes! The book clubs have now been updated so they are set to close 10 years after the last reply — cheers 
14 Likes
YAY!!!
THANK YOU, RACHELさん!
2 Likes
If you updated the default, that doesn’t impact threads like this one that already existed. Is there some automated way to update all the existing threads in this subcategory to the new rule? If not, we can provide a small list of threads that are important to update manually.
8 Likes
@RachelG I found this which may possibly help with automatically updating the auto-close settings on existing Book Club topics
I hope it works, because this affects hundreds of threads:
- ~100 Book Club home threads:
- IBC has 30 picks, so ABBC, BBC, and ABC probably have a similar amount.
- ~1000+ discussion threads:
- All main club reads have >10 weekly discussion threads
- ~100s of offshoots:
- The BBC and ABBC have a high number of offshoot threads for series
- ~50 The IMC is newer but has a fast offshoot production.
I agree with seanblue, if needed we could definitely compile a list ourselves and prioritise to just the book club home threads, although that is still rather large as you can see.
Thank you 
7 Likes
Category list says there’s 3368 topics in the Book Clubs category. 
3 Likes
In case anyone at IBC is interested, there are a couple of us going to start reading another short story collection by 小川洋子 over at Natively.
(Some of you may have been here when we read 妊娠カレンダー with the IBC a year or two ago)
寡黙な死骸みだらな弔い is a collection of short stories that by the sounds of things are eerie and unsettling. It is rated at 35 on Learn Natively, but 小川 is usually fairly comfortably readable for IBC members. We’ll probably read a story a week or so.
7 Likes
Hello everybody, time flies, and so we need to think about our next poll already 
I am thinking of starting it on the 6th of March (or maybe a tad later, depending on my free time), and so, if you want to propose a book: Don’t hold back, now is the time!
11 Likes
As announced, here it is:
Our Next Poll
Have a look at the List of Proposed Books section in the first post for details on each book. Every book has a Natively level associated with it which is annotated in the poll (this Natively list contains all nominated books if you want to have a look at the gradings in detail).
Do not rely solely on Natively level when making a choice. Please have a look at the 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). The pick’s exact reading schedule will be negotiated before the book club kicks off.
Short book rule: If the first place is 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.
Start of Book Club: We will start the next book on April 25th (after a one-week break).
Poll duration: The poll will be closed on 2026-03-13T20:00:00Z. You can choose up to 5 options.
- 人質の朗読会 小川 洋子 [246p. / L30?? / Novel]
- 西の魔女が死んだ 梨木 香歩 [226p. / L28 / Novel]
- 森崎書店の日々 八木沢 里志 [205p. / L32 / Novel]
- 夜警 赤川 次郎 [312p. / L30 / Novel]
- すずめの戸締まり 新海 誠 [384p. / L31 / Novel]
- 阪急電車 有川 浩 [269p. / L35 / Novel]
- ミーナの行進 小川洋子 [348p. / L30?? / Novel]
- 黒猫ニャンゴの冒険 篠浦 知螺 [320p. / L29 / Light Novel]
- ぎんなみ商店街の事件簿 Sister編 井上 真偽 [256p. / L31 / Novel]
0
voters
8 Likes