I’ve only read the first volume, and I liked it. It’s SF, so there were some difficult words, but nothing unreasonable. There’s the old thread from the bookclub to post questions, too. Some of us are still around (although, to be fair, most of the original posters aren’t around anymore and I don’t have the book anymore, so I wouldn’t be able to check anything).
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I’m considering reading that book too. I’ll probably finish my current book by next week, and as I think about my next book I keep swinging back and forth indecisively between 三毛猫ホームズの推理 and 鹿の王。I had been leaning toward 鹿の王 but now I’m leaning back toward Holmes again. (lol) I’m not really in the mood to spend a lot of time with a dictionary this spring and Holmes probably has more overlap with my existing vocabulary knowledge.
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Well, not to try to influence your decision or anything, but it might be fun to have someone to exchange thoughts with as we’re reading. 
Of course it looks like there are many here who have already read 鹿の王 so there will be no shortage of people happy to discuss that either
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Periodt. I’m in, will start late when I got my apartment. Things will call down soon /./
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Oh, I’m also reading volume 4 as we speak (write?).
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Oh, heh. So the 三毛猫ホームズ series is something I’ve never read. I’ve gotten the impression that they’re a lot less trashy than his usual books though so I can’t guarantee it will be the pulpy nonsense of say おやすみなさい、夢なき子 or 夜警. Let me know how it goes - I’m curious!
I’m currently on my fourth book by the author and he really doesn’t go for fancy words at all. It makes for nice couch reading because the more of him I read the less I look up. I also just sometimes find his turns of phrase kind of hilarious. This was from the book I’m currently reading, 遅刻してきた幽霊:
ビルの受付といっても、その大きなビルではないから、美人の受付嬢がいるわけではない。もう大分くたびれたような七十近い老人が座っているだけだ。
Something about how disappointed that sounds had me giggling.
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I haven’t yet read enough of Holmes to judge how pulpy it will turn out to be, if at all, but I’ve already noticed and appreciated the subtle, quiet humour. I’m convinced it’s quite deliberate.
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I also have the preview for this downloaded! The blurb certainly sounds fun haha
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I’m in. Got several new books recently and more are on the way. Looking forward to what next 2 months will bring.
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| 16🥵 | 17🥵 | 18🥵 | 19🥵 | 20🥵 | 21📗 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28📗 | 29 |
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Planned books:
- こぐまのクーク物語 はじめての海とキャンプ about little bear Kuku
- なぜ?どうして?せかいはふしぎ 2年生 about food
- 教科書にでてくるお話 1年生 no idea what this is about
- to be continued
How it really went:
- こぐまのクーク物語: はじめての海とキャンプ: 01-07/04
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This is my first time joining, but this is starting at an opportune time. Have had to pause my Japanese studies for a couple weeks because of exams. Am pretty beat, here’s to hoping this will help me get back on the wagon 
Might be starting a bit late because I have tons of things to catch up to 
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What I'm up to
I’m planning to combine my every day reading with mining. Current plan is to read until I’ve at least mined 10 new, +1 monolingual sentence cards (Amount lowered on the 16th of April from 20 to 15, on May 1st from 15 to 10). I’ll mark days on which I’ve had a dedicated reading session with , days on which I’ve also accomplished my mining goal with .
The book I’m reading is かがみの孤城
Finished Chapter 1 (五月, 10% total) on April 17th. (Took me a while 
)
Finished Chapter 2 (六月, 18.5% total) on April 25th. (Still taking me too long… This whole mining thing is taking up way more time than I expected )
Finished Chapter 3(七月, 25% total) on April 30th. (Math says slightly faster, but still too long… Wondering if I should put less priority on the mining, but I should stick to the plan. Getting faster by cutting down the work isn’t what I want 
)
Finished Chapter 4(八月, 35% total) on May 8th. (I picked up in speed a bit. Doesn’t show as much in the %/day because I’ve had a couple low days. Mining has gotten much easier and I’ve changed my mindset about it a little bit these last days. Feeling better about my progress, maybe I’ll be able to finish かがみの孤城 before university picks up again )
Finished Chapter 5(九月, 40% total) on May 9th. (Still too slow 
… okay, not really 
Finished 5%, about 12500 characters, an entire chapter, in about a day. While mining a bunch and having really high comprehension. Am feeling quite proud, and since nobody is ever going to read this anyways I’m okay saying so :') Sadly this is probably going to be the peak %/day for this challenge, because circumstances have changed and I’ll probably have to reduce my reading time even more.)
Finished Chapter 6(十月, 44,6% total) on May 11th. (Back to more modest speeds we are. Likely will have to slow down even more, which is pretty frustrating. I really wanted to finish this before my exams :c)
Finished Chapter 7(十一月, 48,3% total) on May 12th. (Whoops, got a little hooked on that one)
Finished Chapter 8(十ニ月, 55,7% total) on May 13th. (Finished Book 1) (… going to slow down any day now. Who needs that degree anyways, right?)
Finished Chapter 9(一月, 63,3% total) on May 15th. (Didn’t get much reading done on the 14th, only 7 pages, so this one was a bit slower. Overall the reading has gotten pretty smooth, now it’s mostly a thing of time and stamina. The 5%/day that seemed so fast just a couple days ago are now becoming the norm.)
Finished Chapter 10(二月, 71% total) on May 16th. (Wasn’t a fan of this chapter at all. I had some issues with the writing before, but this one nugged me from “It’s good but not very well thought through” to “This isn’t very well written” :c Here’s to hoping the ending can nudge me back again 
)
Finished the book on May 17 (Feeling a little better about the book, the ending was a very nice read. Didn’t solve my problems with the previous chapter, but lessened the sting a little)
34 Likes
Thank you for the new challenge @windupbird 
I’ll be starting with 夜カフェ volume 1 this time.
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32 Likes
Seems like we might end up having a mini unofficial book club of three. 
(or not. but it could be fun)
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A grumpy panda has entered the challenge!!!
No computers allowed, only reading in Japanese!
20 Likes
Pretty sure my local Japanese library has a copy of the book so if you all start reading at the same time I might be able to join…
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Well, I’ve only recently started reading in Japanese so there’s only one book that I put aside but that’s because it was too kanji-dense and frustrating for me to read. (It was Maid sama vol. 1.) I don’t know what I will do when I feel confident enough to tackle it again, though. After all, I know the story. I’ve read it in English and watched the anime. So I don’t have to restart it because I’m not sure of the story but I might want to restart it to see if it’s easier to go through the kanji the second time around.
5 Likes
windupbird’s summary post
Challenge Progress and Links to Daily Posts
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Goals (if you can really call them that lol)
I’ve been trying to think about this for the past couple days and I’m sort of coming up empty, tbh. (Besides reading every day, of course - that’s always the main goal ^^)
I was reading 2 daily entry books in the last challenge, but I haven’t read from either of them since the last challenge ended, and I don’t feel a huge urge to pick them up again right now. I feel like they did take up kind of a lot of time, and I’d sort of rather focus more on something more story-like this round. So in the spirit of that long post I wrote in the Winter Challenge thread about choosing what I do with my time, I’m going to let those go for right now. But nothing else is particularly calling my name at the moment, either…I feel like I’m just going to look around my shelves on April 1st and see what I want to pick in that moment xD I wish I had the third tanuki book, but I’ve been spending so much money lately (like, ungodly amounts of money) so I’m trying not to order anything more right now. It’s not like I don’t have plenty of things to read already in my home xD
I’ll just have to peruse my stacks on the 1st and see what I find~
Previous challenge summary posts:
Summer 2021 Challenge 
Fall 2021 Challenge 
Winter 2022 Challenge 
Also, here’s my Bookmeter, in case anyone’s interested! ^^
36 Likes
Could do the reading equivalent of snacking/grazing and just peruse the first couple pages of something random each day. If it snares you in and you end up reading it - great! If not…keep grazing, guilt free cause you’re getting in daily reading anyhow. I’ve read the first few pages of most of the books on my shelves just from “snack reading” to see what catches my interest in the moment.
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What, what? As in cute, mischievous little tanuki? Tell me more!
5 Likes
I haven’t read it, so I’m sure @windupbird will tell you more… but I’m the meantime, I found their original post mentioning The Tanuki! Check it out for a short intro and cute picture!
10 Likes