Hello and welcome to our next book club pick!
First of all, I would like to discuss the schedule. The book contains many chapters, here is an overview of them:
Book chapters
| Chapter | Start Page | Page Count |
|---|---|---|
| カラスと呼ばれる少年 | 5 | 9 |
| Ch. 1 | 14 | 12 |
| Ch. 2 | 26 | 12 |
| Ch. 3 | 38 | 13 |
| Ch. 4 | 51 | 13 |
| Ch. 5 | 64 | 28 |
| Ch. 6 | 92 | 17 |
| Ch. 7 | 109 | 15 |
| Ch. 8 | 124 | 16 |
| Ch. 9 | 140 | 15 |
| Ch. 10 | 155 | 22 |
| Ch. 11 | 177 | 22 |
| Ch. 12 | 199 | 19 |
| Ch. 13 | 218 | 28 |
| Ch. 14 | 246 | 25 |
| Ch. 15 | 271 | 25 |
| Ch. 16 | 292 | 26 |
| Ch. 17 | 318 | 27 |
| Ch. 18 | 345 | 17 |
| Ch. 19 | 362 | 25 |
| Ch. 20 | 387 | 26 |
| Ch. 21 | 413 | 22 |
| Ch. 22 | 435 | 24 |
| Ch. 23 | 459 | 28 |
These page numbers and counts are from the actual paperback bunko for a change 
My first instinct was to have a look at a 12-week schedule:
| Week | Chapters | Page Count |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | 0, 1, 2 | 33 |
| Week 2 | 3, 4 | 26 |
| Week 3 | 5, 6 | 45 |
| Week 4 | 7, 8, 9 | 46 |
| Week 5 | 10, 11 | 44 |
| Week 6 | 12, 13 | 47 |
| Week 7 | 14, 15 | 50 |
| Week 8 | 16 | 26 |
| Week 9 | 17, 18 | 44 |
| Week 10 | 19, 20 | 51 |
| Week 11 | 21, 22 | 46 |
| Week 12 | 23 | 28 |
Things to note:
- The average page count is pretty high at ~45 pages, and then we have a few outliers at <30 pages. Might be ok, might feel strange.
- Murakami’s writing is a bit unpredictable for me; sometimes it’s pretty straightforward, sometimes it can be very hard with lots of difficult (for me) kanji and vocab. So I sat down and read the first few pages to try to assess this somewhat better, and I found that it’s rather on the straightforward side for this book. I also looked at a few pages that were around the middle of the book to check whether they’d suddenly become more difficult, but it didn’t seem like that to me. Therefore I think this schedule might be doable.
Anyways, I tried some slower schedules, and here’s what I came up with:
Slower schedules
Here I’ll show only those parts that differ from the 12-week schedule.
13 weeks:
| Week | Chapters | Page Count |
|---|---|---|
| Week 9 | 17 | 27 |
| Week 10 | 18, 19 | 42 |
| Week 11 | 20 | 26 |
| Week 12 | 21, 22 | 46 |
| Week 13 | 23 | 28 |
14 weeks:
| Week | Chapters | Page Count |
|---|---|---|
| Week 7 | 14 | 25 |
| Week 8 | 15 | 25 |
| Week 9 | 16 | 26 |
| Week 10 | 17 | 27 |
| Week 11 | 18, 19 | 42 |
| Week 12 | 20 | 26 |
| Week 13 | 21, 22 | 46 |
| Week 14 | 23 | 28 |
15 weeks:
| Week | Chapters | Page Count |
|---|---|---|
| Week 4 | 7, 8 | 31 |
| Week 5 | 9, 10 | 37 |
| Week 6 | 11, 12 | 41 |
| Week 7 | 13 | 28 |
| Week 8 | 14 | 25 |
| Week 9 | 15 | 25 |
| Week 10 | 16 | 26 |
| Week 11 | 17 | 27 |
| Week 12 | 18, 19 | 42 |
| Week 13 | 20 | 26 |
| Week 14 | 21, 22 | 46 |
| Week 15 | 23 | 28 |
I also looked at 16 weeks but it was identical to the 15-week schedule for the first 13 (!) weeks, so I determined that that’s a bit pointless.
As you can see, the first 3 or 6 or 8 weeks are identical, so my suggestion would be to only decide the exact schedule after the first 2-3 weeks are done so that we already have a feeling for the text and how we can get along with it.
And then, I thought about going faster 
Here’s the 11-week schedule:
| Week | Chapters | Page Count |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | 0, 1, 2, 3 | 46 |
| Week 2 | 4, 5 | 41 |
| Week 3 | 6, 7 | 32 |
| Week 4 | 8, 9 | 31 |
| Week 5 | 10, 11 | 44 |
| Week 6 | 12, 13 | 47 |
| Week 7 | 14, 15 | 50 |
| Week 8 | 16, 17 | 53 |
| Week 9 | 18, 19 | 42 |
| Week 10 | 20, 21 | 48 |
| Week 11 | 22, 23 | 52 |
I think it has a beautiful rhythm and uniformity to it, with 2 chapters per week for basically all weeks. But it’s pretty fast 
To be honest I don’t even know whether I can keep up with this schedule, with all the other stuff I’ve got going on, but if y’all are in favor of this, then I won’t be the one who’s standing in your way, that’s for sure
What reading schedule do you prefer?
- 12 [- 15] weeks (let’s decide as we go)
- 11 weeks
- I have a different idea (please explain)
0 voters