Would anyone be interested in a book club for really long books?

Japanese Language Reading
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Poll in this post

So, anyway, hello. I’m that one crazy person who wants to read more despite already being in all the book clubs and reading some stuff on my own. I’ve already nominated a few books for the book clubs, but there’s one kind of book that won’t be read in the normal book clubs: the really long ones(basically meaning 400+ pages). I do remember that someone proposed an advanced book club a while ago, but that wasn’t specifically dedicated to long books, so that’s why I figured I’d make this topic to see if anyone is interested in a book club dedicated exclusively to some really long book.

First of all, I do realise that there are at least a few reasons for why this very well could be a bad idea, but I’d figured I’d start out by just checking if anyone even is interested at all, and then go from there if there does end up being any interest.

For starters, I figured I’d just list a few long books I am interested in just to see if anyone else would be interested:

  1. Sword Art Online Progressive (520 pages long) or Sword Art Online Alternative (472 pages long)

First of all, about Progressive: I figure most people have heard of Sword Art Online. This series is something the author started writing about 10 years after he first wrote the original series, because he felt like there were things he couldn’t do the first time around, if I recall correctly. His writing supposedly also got better during those 10 years. It starts from very near the beginning of the original series, so I imagine the knowledge required about it would be pretty minimal.

Then, about Alternative: it’s a spin-off written by the author of Kino’s Journey. It’s about people playing a vr game called “Gun Gale Online” and as far as I’m aware basically completely unrelated to the main series.

Bookwalker has sample pages for Alternative

Edit: Replaced the second book in the list because someone gave a better suggestion

  1. 獣の奏者 (360 pages according to amazon, but the following volumes are longer)

Sample pages on bookwalker

To be honest, I know very little about this, but a few people seem interested in it. (So it’s probably better to look it up yourself than for me to try to describe it),

So, yeah, the thing I want to know is basically if anyone would be interested in a book club for really long books, which might be a really horrible idea, but I still figured I’d at least see if anyone is interested. The books I mentioned above are just some examples, so if anyone is interested in the idea but not necessarily those specific books, I’m open to suggestions.

I think the two main things that could be problematic is that these really long books also tend to be somewhat difficult, so that could either lead to needing a really slow pace(and then it could be hard for people to stick to one book for that long), or that we go with a faster pace and only people who are fairly experienced would be able to keep up.

Aside from needing to find balance there, there are obviously also other things that will need to be arranged if anyone is interested, but for now: is anyone interested? Or is this a ridiculous idea that will make everyone think I’m crazy? Well, let’s find out! :sweat:

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I would love to, but I don’t think I’m ready.
I’d like to eventually be able to read novels in Japanese… but I believe that right now it would take me a long long time to read a single page.

Do you have by chance a sample page of these books?

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If you read this be prepared for lolis and lewdness. Assuming the anime was a somewhat faithful adaption.

To the actual question, I’m not interested right now because my pace is still too slow. Maybe eventually though.

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Oh hey! Nice idea! I’d definitely join :slight_smile:
Not sure about SAO, since volume one of the original series felt, well, complete, but I’ve seen 化物語 around. I didn’t get curious about it, but why not.
Edit:

Here’s why not.

Other than that, I would recommend
新世界より (3 volumes of ~450 pages each)
(I’m currently on the last volume though)
and 獣の奏者 (I’ve read the first (half) book, but that was a long time ago anyway)

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I know there are some online, so I’ll add a link to them later :slight_smile:

I did not know that, so I guess it’s probably better to not go with that one then :sweat_smile: (maybe I’ll just update the list with suggestions from others if enough people seem interested)

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I can definitely second 獣の奏者’s first half of the first book. It was interesting. Also in general, I am on board. Obviously with SAO, but really anything. It would be nice to do a faster pace though to allow a wider variety of books and not have to suffer a bad book for as long. Kind of like the pace we are doing for SAO right now or something maybe…:upside_down_face::turtle:

(Also yeah, that sounds like a good reason to drop Bake)

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Reading this with a group could be interesting, but again it would depend on the pace. I might prefer a random discussion thread where I can read it at my own pace but ask questions.

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Well I want to read all of the books but I’m probably still in the “can’t keep up” group.

I have my eye on that one hard though, and I’d be less scared reading it with a book club, but as I said it seems like you’d go for a pace much faster than I can handle right now (and that’s fine, I’ll just envy you from afar :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:).

Edit: @seanblue how dare you quote what I quote but faster

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This is how I feel every time @Ditto20 mentions everything they’re reading. :sob:

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Some people were born fluent, some people were fluent to be born…:upside_down_face::turtle:

Edit: Azula never lies. Azula never lies.

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I’ve seen the Sword Art Online Alternative anime so it might be an easier reading because of that :man_shrugging:

Big books still scare me though, I’m not confident I could keep up.

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I hope you don’t mind that I replaced the last book in the list with this since it seemed like a better suggestion. Hopefully I linked to the right thing :slight_smile:

(I also added some links to the bookwalker pages, which have sample pages, for the books with good samples).

And since the thing most people seem concerned about seems to be the pace, what kind of pace does everyone think would be reasonable for them for these kinds of books?

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I’d be happy to to join a group like this. Definitely interested in reading some SAO (can you tell from my avatar? :stuck_out_tongue:). I had been putting off reading it when I started reading light novels, since it looked hard, but that was a while ago, and I can read Re Zero with little difficulty. I am open to other books too though.

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Well I’d like to not read a single book for half a year, but I’m also not capable of reading 30 pages a week right now. I already own the first two volumes of 獣の奏者, but I wasn’t planning to start them until late this year or early next year. That said, depending on what pace was selected and when it was being read, I would consider dropping a lot of other things to read this.

There’s already a thread for that if you don’t mind random discussions instead of a weekly schedule.

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Well, how much do you think you could manage? :thinking: at, say, 50% effort (so that catching up if anything happen isn’t impossible)

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Uhh, it’s kinda hard to say. With intermediate book club I’ve been reading 10-20 pages a week, along with some manga on my own. This does include some wiggle room, so if I get a bit behind I could probably catch up. It’s also just an endless dilemma because I really need to dedicate some time for grammar study so I don’t get tripped up by grammar as much as I do. Plus sometimes I just don’t feel like reading.

If I didn’t read any other books or manga and didn’t do any explicit grammar study, I might be able to read 30 pages a week. But it probably wouldn’t be a good idea and it could result in me not enjoying a book that I otherwise might enjoy.

There’s a reason I wasn’t planning to read 獣の奏者 quite yet. I think finishing コンビニ人間, reading one more intermediate book like 魔法少女育成計画, and finishing going through all the N3 grammar points (and some common N2 grammar points) would go a long way to making my reading smoother.

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Right, that sounds like 100% effort. So, yeah, 15-20 pages a week (aka 50-66% effort) sounds appropriate. I’m actually fine with that, by the way.

Obviously, waiting is fine too; we can read something else.

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Count me in. My only concern right now is that I’m trying to cut back on the number of books I’m reading at once to really focus on 1 or 2 at a time and maintain the flow but that should be fine after ハルヒ and/or コンビニ.

My other problem is that most of my reading time goes towards VNs right now instead of actual books so the pace would be a factor. Probably 5 pages a day or so would be my limit. If anyone ever wanted to do a VN club though, I’d be interested. It could help to have some motivation when you’re reading something for 100+ hours. Although that might be too hard for a number of reasons (getting copies, taste, expense, harder to pick up and read anywhere).

There was a thread about this earlier that didn’t get much interest but the one long book I’m already planning on reading is 風が強く吹いている which is 512 pages. It’s about college students forming a team of runners and trying to qualify for the 箱根駅伝. It doesn’t seem particularly difficult from what I’ve read so far and I enjoyed the anime a lot.

I would read most of the suggestions so far too.

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ペンギンハイウェー has been suggested in the past, and I think it’s been turned down because of its length. It’s 365 pages (with images), so not quite so long as your suggestions, but perhaps?

So far, though, reading Haruhi has… not been fun. Not because of the subject matter, that is, but because it takes me about half an hour per page (and also the fact that I can’t seem to read aloud fluently to save my life).

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I’m still annoyed that I bought the Tsubasa Bunko version of Penguin Highway. :angry:

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