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+--- Thread: Book Club (/thread-12082.html)
Book Club - tashippy - 2014-08-17
Would anyone be interested in starting a book club, off this site? We could read one book at a time, novel, manga, both of the same story, and we get everyone set up with that book, be it digital copies, Anki decks, UPS. We can talk about the stories, study techniques, and how we felt reading parts of a story in English in order to foster comprehension, and have threads for vocab lists or sentence meaning questions. I'm not sure of the best site to do it on, I have mostly used Google Sites and not as a forum. ..
Edit: These are the books chosen for Rnd 1:
beginner: 君にしか聞こえない, 乙一
intermediate: Go, 金城 一紀
advanced: オール・ユー・ニード・イズ・キル／Ａｌｌ Ｙｏｕ Ｎｅｅｄ Ｉｓ Ｋｉｌｌ、桜坂 洋 Sakurazaka Hiroshi
Book Club - comeauch - 2014-08-17
Maybe as a group on Goodreads?
Book Club - RandomQuotes - 2014-08-18
I'd be down for this, and I agree that goodreads, librarything, or shelfari might be the best way since all three are built to facilitate discussion on books.
Book Club - Bokusenou - 2014-08-18
I'm interested. Maybe we could use an 青空文庫 work, something from the 'innocent' books thread, or something else available for free online. Finding something that everyone (with their different levels of Japanese) could read might be tricky though.
Book Club - Aikynaro - 2014-08-18
I'm interested, so long as you're not looking at reading anything painfully difficult.
Book Club - Doctorhabib - 2014-08-18
Im in, but the time you plan to give someone for reading should be reasonable so that the average learner can manage.
Other than that , this sounds like a great idea =)
Book Club - sholum - 2014-08-18
Sounds interesting, but such online groups tend to dissolve pretty quickly, so gaining and maintaining interest may be difficult.
If you can pull it off though, it ought to be fun.
Book Club - Moregon - 2014-08-18
Maybe it'd be better to create two groups, one with a easier book, the other with a more difficult one. This way we could involve more users and have a better chance to see the club going on.
It's a good idea though, I've found that this kind of things help me immensily with my studying. During the last Tadoku month I've read more than in the previous six! If we create a group with a easy light novel or something similar, I'm in!
Book Club - tashippy - 2014-08-18
I'm not sure if you can search books in Japanese on those sites? Maybe dokusho meter...There's a learning curve to using that site though because it's in Japanese, but you can find any book.
We could have sort of a loose group with a few books that everyone tries to read at their own pace, assembling summaries and Anki decks so a few select books are set up for readers and we can have some easier books/light novels up. It'd be on everyone here to try and stick to the main books so it's not a runaway hodgepodge of people reading what they want.
Thanks for the feedback and interest so far.
Book Club - gaiaslastlaugh - 2014-08-19
I like the "loose group of books" idea. We can perhaps choose a few titles at a time that hit several different levels of difficulty - easy, intermediate, and hard? I'm sure we could all chip in enough suggestions to find material for all levels of learners.
Count me in.
Book Club - NickT - 2014-08-19
I also like the "loose group of books" idea. People's pace will be very different, a book that might take one person a year could be read by another in a week or less.
Rather than people nominating random books that may or may not be suitable, I think a better way to go is for members of the group to nominate only books that they have actually read. They can post a short plot summary along with perceived difficulty rating and another rating of how much they liked it, and then people can decide themselves what they want to read. I could contribute at least 10 books right off the bat that I would recommend to learners of different levels (out of about 30 books I have read, many of which I would not particularly recommend). Or if people find that overwhelming I could just recommend 1 or 2.
Once additional people read the book (or even just start reading), then people can discuss the book, post their own difficulty and enjoyment rating, or perhaps ask specific vocab and grammar questions where they don't understand something.
I'm not so keen on the anki decks idea though, personally. It is an awful lot of work, and I can't see how it would be beneficial for a novel due to the sheer amount of words they contain. It makes sense for an anime perhaps but not a novel.
Book Club - tashippy - 2014-08-19
Yeah, NickT, 1 or 2 suggestions might be good, so the group doesn't become a run-away suggestion/review thread. We can take your 1 or 2 suggestions, and if they are worthwhile, those can be the first one or two books. I think actually because there [is]is[/i] a group study sub-forum here, maybe we can make a thread for each book the book club is working with, and it shouldn't become overwhelming, require new memberships at other sites, and will attract new readers of said books as the thread is bumped.
edit: if anyone wants to read a book by Higashino Keigo, he was recommended to me by a Japanese teacher. I have a book called "Himitsu". Perhaps this could be the advanced group book, and I will catch up b/c it will take me a while to read it. Thoughts?
Book Club - NickT - 2014-08-22
I don't know much about Himitsu, but I will certainly add it to my reading list.
Unfortunately it is not available on the Kindle (I don't think any of Higashino Keigo's books are), which is my main tool for reading, so it may not be the next book I read, but I will certainly get around to it.
So how does one get involved, other than just picking up the book and reading it? Is there somewhere to post about it, other than just this thread?
Book Club - Splatted - 2014-08-22
Hi guys, I'm somewhat interested in taking part but I'm not really sure. I think we really need to decide whether we're going to stick to free online resources like Bokusenou suggested or published material that will need to be purchased. The cost of importing books is obviously going to be pretty prohibitive to those of us living outside of Japan so I can't imagine this being successful if that's required, but a reasonable compromise could be to allow e-books. I don't have a capable device but if there are enough of you that do then it might be worth it.
Personally I think there is more than enough worthwhile material available free through the innocent book thread and aozora to support a book club. The main problem with these resources is it's hard to find what's worth reading, but a book club would be perfect for that.
I think we also need some kind of time frame for how long books remain on the reading list or I feel it will just be a general place to post about whatever we've been reading. (which isn't bad but lacks the incentive)
Edit: Also there's a review of Himitsu here http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=9228
I agree that Higashino Keigo is good for beginners though I do find him a bit dry.
Book Club - tashippy - 2014-08-22
I see your point, Splatted. I agree we should use books that are innocently shareable. @NickT, I think we might try starting a thread on the Group Study page for whatever book we decide on. That way, there is no sort of schedule for who soon individuals should finish the book.
Book Club - gaiaslastlaugh - 2014-08-22
I'm fine with innocent books. And I would put forward a recommendation for the works of 星新一. I started reading 宇宙の声 on the recommendation of a friend a while back, and found it very enjoyable and easy to read.
Book Club - Bokusenou - 2014-08-22
Himitsu is an innocent book if we decide to go with it.
Book Club - Moregon - 2014-08-23
I suggest Zero no Tsukaima as a beginner level book. Everybody brings it up in every suggestion topic for its simplicity, I've read the first two chapters when I was around 3000 vocabs and I could more or less follow the story (with many look ups, thanks Jade Reader!), I skimmed it a little now that I'm around 6000 vocabs and I've read all of Yotsubato and a few chapter of some other mangas, and it's pretty comprehensible.
I think it's important to have a really easy light novel in the selection if we want to have a decent number of partecipants, there's nothing more frustrating than trying to read a book too difficult.
Edit: in addition, you can find it among the innocent books!
Book Club - Splatted - 2014-08-23
What about intermediate suggestions? I'll nominate All You Need is Kill as something I really enjoyed. It's actually one of the first books I read so beginners might want to take a gander as well*, but it was hard enough that I kept having to take breaks and actually finished a couple of other books while I was still reading it. The main point though is that it was good enough to keep me coming back.
*The nature of the plot (repeating the same two days over and over) means that there's a lot of repetition so it's actually easier than your initial impression might suggest. Edit: He doesn't do the same thing every time of course, and there is a whole section in the middle that deals with different events.
Book Club - tashippy - 2014-08-23
Okay, so let's do All You Need is Kill.
Is that in innocent (I misplaced my files so if anyone can link me to the right place I'd appreciate it)?
And Zero no Tsukaima, Vol. 1 for now.
I don't think I'll read Zero no Tsukaima because I can't get into LN's, but AYNIK sounds great.
We should just start threads in the group study area, does that sound reasonable for now?
I don't think there is a need to make another "level" above "intermediate" because intermediate is in itself a broad range, and we can identify ease in more relative terms in the thread for whatever book, e.g. when Splatted explained how the repetition in AYNIK makes it a good pick and not too 'advanced'.
Book Club - Bokusenou - 2014-08-23
Technically both AYNIK and ZnT are LNs, but the former does seem more like something I'd enjoy...
Yeah, it's in innocent.
Check the innocent books thread: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5048
Book Club - Splatted - 2014-08-24
It seems the innocent links are now dead. I think I still have most of the files stored somewhere so I'll put them on my dropbox once I track them down. Also 秘密 is an innocent book too so that's still a perfectly good nomination.
I've read Zero No Tsukaima as well as AYNIK and half of 秘密 so I might just wait for you guys to finish up and then join in at the next round of nominations.
Book Club - Splatted - 2014-08-24
I'm not entirely sure how sharing works in Dropbox but I think you can access them if I just post this link.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5pxmwkj6d7hlvf0/AACk7FuDPZr5pPcIzWQnbFx6a?dl=0
Otherwise people might need to send me a message with their email and I'll add them. Most of the books are now uploaded. There are two more folders of Nestor books that I've yet to upload but I don't have the rest. My memory is that the Nestor batch was mostly covered by the Hongfire batch though so that shouldn't be a big problem.
Edit: Worth mentioning is that Dropbox doesn't allow high traffic so you need to download them to read. If you want to read them in a browser you can convert them to html with this http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=7229
Book Club - Bokusenou - 2014-08-24
Just read the first few pages of AYNIK. I'll say one thing, the author sure knows how to make an impression!
Are we going to have a discussion thread and only post in it when we've finished the book, or...?
Edit: Also the link in the innocent book thread isn't dead if you go to the updated post at the bottom:
http://ja-dark.tumblr.com/post/85224312032/japanese-study-says-e-books-more-effective-in-teaching
Dropbox is probably more convenient though.
Book Club - tashippy - 2014-08-24
Thanks, folks. We will start a thread in Group Study for AYNIK. You can post in it whenever you want and no matter where you are in the book (series?). Questions about the plot, comments on characters or subtext, favorite characters, commentary on anime/movie vs. book/translation/original...
As well as how you went about reading it: in conjunction with a translation, using LTR, vocabulary lists. Does this sound about right? Should we just become a Higashino Keigo fan-fiction syndicate?
We can make a thread for Himitsu, but I wasn't sure bc former readers rated 3/10.
BTW This thread needs one more Romanian.