We will start reading on February 4th, 2023. Page counts are estimates from a digital edition(fixed, based on the hardcover edition). Please reference the stopping points as there are few chapters.
For those of you who are planning to read in digital form (or who have too much trouble acquiring the physical book) there is a 50% coin cashback for this book at Bookwalker until 2022-12-25T14:59:00Z.
Just fyi, these page numbers don’t line up with my hardback copy, where the chapters start on pages 5, 75, 149, 229 and 285. Shouldn’t be a big deal for us paper readers to adjust…
Ah yeah, I think I called that out in the main ABC thread. I didn’t have access to a paper copy so I just did the best I could with the ebook and mainly focused on length of sections and clearish break points (since it doesn’t break neatly like some other books unfortunately)
I’m of the opinion that anything the club finds helpful can be added so long as if it’s a spoiler it’s blurred. If the list becomes unwieldly we can revisit it and perhaps apply some organization to it, but since it’s a wiki I expect it to evolve a bit over time.
Hey all! I’m going to be out of town due to work and won’t have my personal laptop (and no personal things allowed on the work machine) so I’m posting two of the threads a bit early. Please note that week one doesn’t officially start until Feb 4 and week 2 til Feb 11 so please do not feel rushed.
If anyone is on the fence about reading this book, it seems the free trial contents go well beyond the reading for Week 1 (and maybe reach Week 2? Can’t tell), so it’s a good opportunity to try it out without any risk. It’s for sure what I’m doing.
Side note: am I losing my mind or does the last page of the Amazon.jp free sample literally have the bookwalker logo on it? I’m… confused.
I think Bookwalker is just the store of a publisher (Kodansha) and while Bookwalker also sells books from other publishers, if the book was published by Kodansha then why not put a commercial to their own service on the last page?
Hmmm, I guess if that’s the case it makes sense then. In my mind it was just like… why do they have the logo of the competition in there But if they publish the books then it checks out
It’s my first time reading with a book club here, so forgive me if it’s a stupid question/suggestion, but would it be possible to add the % and not just the page numbers to the reading schedule? I’m reading digital (as probably most people), so that would make it easier for me to see “how much is left” when I’m reading.
I think I’m officially in the “never catching up” group. I’m already nearly a week behind, with a little less than an hour left to read of week 2’s portion. If I really really pushed I could probably catch up within 2-3 weeks, but there are two problems with that:
This book isn’t easy enough or gripping enough for me to push like that (pushing to read fast would probably hurt my enjoyment)
I got a new English book that I originally intended to read starting this week because this week and next were “shorter” weeks at 34 pages. Now that I’m behind, I’d have to wait several more weeks or maybe even until the end of the book club to read it, which I’m just not going to do.
Unlike Spice and Wolf, I think I will keep reading this. I am enjoying it overall, except when it throws out a ton of food or other special-category words all at once that I don’t know. At those times I want to never touch the book again! I’m just realizing that it’s not a “gripping, want to read fast” kind of book for me, so I’m better off reading it at my own pace. I’ll probably read the above-mentioned English book and 1-2 easier Japanese books while reading this, to avoid going multiple months without finishing a book like happened to me a couple times last year.
Also, to expand a bit on the difficulty. Partially in response to:
Through the first chapter (nearly done) I’ve definitely had to look up more words compared to many books I read, but for me the hardest part has just been the writing style. I’ve often found it difficult to follow the author’s train of thought. Like it flows in a direction I’m not expecting and I keep doing double takes and having to reread sections.
I think the hardest Japanese book I’ve completed so far is 薬屋のひとりごと (level 37), with close runner ups to 魔法少女育成計画 (level 35) and Red Data Girl (level 34, which feels understated to me). So far, この本を盗むものは feels slightly harder than all of those. If I were to give this book a speculative Natively difficulty from the first chapter, I think something in the 36-39 range would be fair. Its current rating of 46 certainly feels overstated by quite a bit.
I’m also on week 2 right now and I’m glad I’m not the only one feeling that.
In terms of difficulty, I’m getting a strong 夜は短し歩けよ乙女 | L42 feeling (except the main character is less weird). (Interestingly, the only grading available so far is that this book is harder than 夜は短し歩けよ乙女, which is not the case for me so far, but I’m still early on).
46 seems overkill, but I could see it being 40 +/- 2.
I could see ~35 but 40 seems far too high for me. It’s magic realism but it doesn’t seem that bad to me. I’m going to start week 3’s reading tonight so we’ll see how that goes, but I recall seeing @pm215 saying it doesn’t stay in magic realism.
I would say “we’ll see where it lands after everyone finishes the book and rates it on Natively”, except Natively’s limitations may not allow me to do any comparisons at all, unless you all bring it down to the low 40s / high 30s first. (And even then, if I ultimately still think it’s slightly harder than 薬屋のひとりごと’s 37, I still won’t be able to lower the difficulty rating since I won’t be able to rate it easier than anything else I’ve read.)
I hope you don’t mind me saying, but given your Japanese level this makes me feel a little bit better!
But if they publish the books then it checks out
