Sounds good! Maybe we should color major spoilers in white and note which chapter it spoils, e.g "spoiler for chapter 2:", etc.

I've already read AYNIK and ZNT so I guess I will bow out - If a good discussion gets going happy to contribute, particularly if people get stuck etc. I already discussed a number of passages from this book with a native Japanese friend of mine, and can share some of the insights if people get stuck in the same places.

Also, I already wrote a review of AYNIK in another thread. You can find it by searching the acronym if you are interested (I just added it to the review to make it easier to find). I tried to avoid including any spoilers.

Good luck everyone. I'll keep an eye on this to see what book you choose next.

tashippy Wrote:We can make a thread for Himitsu, but I wasn't sure bc former readers rated 3/10.

Actually it was just one person that rated it 3/10. Honestly I probably wouldn't have linked that review if I'd remembered what it said. Higashino Keigio isn't for everyone but there do seem to be a lot of people who think very highly of him and I can definitely see why. From what I've read his characters are well developed and nothing ever seems to happen just because the plot demanded it.

That being said, I've just discovered that　秘密 is 452 pages long so maybe it's not ideal as a beginner selection anyway.

You can watch a movie version, it's only 120mins long

umetani666 Wrote:You can watch a movie version, it's only 120mins long

Book club = Fail Orz

I don't think watching the movie makes it a fail. As long as you read the book too, hopefully with increased comprehension of what's going on based on having seen the flick.

If I was going to read a Higashino Keigo I would be more interested in 容疑者Xの献身, which I think is also an innocent book.

Does anyone know if it is particularly suited/unsuited for more advanced learners of Japanese? I know it is a well-regarded book generally, but then there are plenty of well-regarded books in English that I wouldn't dream of recommending to non-native speakers.

I would really suggest a book less than 400 pages just because reading in Japanese is so tedious when you're a beginner, and even at a relatively advanced level it can be tedious to spend that much time with a book you aren't feeling, for whatever reason. (I do not think Higashino Keigo is a good writer, but no matter who the writer was I would suggest 2 200-page books over 1 400-page book.)

I think that Higashino is pretty decent for beginners, though -- he's at least got a relatively simple prose style.

Even though I'm OP I don't want to discourage anyone from taking the helm, making decisions re: book choices, and just starting a thread about it and seeing where it goes. Just call the threads Book Club: ___name of book___ or something. Thanks.

It's probably better if you (or at least someone in particular) does take the helm. Otherwise we'll probably just waffle about it here and nothing will actually happen - or something will happen but not for very long.

gaiaslastlaugh's suggestion of 宇宙の声 is very good for a beginners book. きまぐれロボット by the same author is possibly even easier.

Really wondering about some of these other 'beginner' book suggestions though. I suspect people have either forgotten what beginner's level looks like or they read with a whole lot of automatic dictionary lookups.


How about we collect a bunch of nominations and have a poll ( http://strawpoll.me/ would work fine) to choose the next book? Seems pretty arbitrary at the moment (I don't think anyone's actually expressed interest in reading Zero no Tsukaima, for instance, but it seems to be a front-runner).

I don't think they were supposed to be all suggestions for beginners - I thought it was pretty clear that there could be recommendations for intermediate and advanced learners too.

Anyway, I think I agree that more suggestions would be good at this stage, even if ultimately a single book is agreed on. ZNT was OK, but given the subject matter (wizards and dragons) it will not appeal to many.

I've read and enjoyed all of the books below, and I have attached approximate levels for each so people can judge whether they might be suitable. They are in approximate order of difficulty from hardest to easiest (imho). Many of them are innocent books, but not all (if someone can be bothered to check they can do a redacted list).

N1.5　　Ａｌｌ　Ｙｏｕ　Ｎｅｅｄ　Ｉｓ　Ｋｉｌｌ
N1.5　　グラスホッパー
N2　　ＢＯＲＤＥＲ
N2　　ＧＯ
N2　　死神の精度
N2　　涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱
N2　　夏と花火と私の死体
N2　　失はれる物語
N2　　七瀬ふたたび
N2.5　　ＺＯＯ　1
N2.5　　時をかける少女
N3　　ゼロの使い魔
N3　　キノの旅
N3　　宇宙の男たち
N3　　頭の大きなロボット
N3　　宇宙のあいさつ
N3　　しあわせは子猫のかたち
N3　　君にしか聞こえない

If it were down to me and I had to make a single recommendation for each of beginners and intermediate/advanced, I would probably pick 君にしか聞こえない and ＧＯ respectively, both of which are innocent. For those who prefer to pay, they are also both available on the Kindle, and indeed dead tree format.

I know - I was referring to stuff specifically mentioned as good for beginners.
For instance, I don't think ZnT is 'beginners'. It's not difficult, but it's very light on the furigana and pretty long. There are certainly many easier books out there.
(also, if dragons and wizards aren't considered good subject matter, this might not be the book club for me... )

But - eh - there's not really a good metric for measuring language levels. JLPT is terrible but there isn't much else. Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced is vague and subjective.

I'd happily nominate anything I wrote about here - some is beginner, some intermediate. But I kind-of get the feeling that anything that gets chosen is going to have to at least be in digital format, which rules out pretty much everything I've read.

Mostly using NickT's suggestions:
"Advanced": http://strawpoll.me/2428855
"Intermediate": http://strawpoll.me/2428980
"Beginner": http://strawpoll.me/2429065

I will aim to close the polls 24 hours from now, depending on how much has been decided.

Where can I find those innocent books?

cophnia61 Wrote:Where can I find those innocent books?

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid211353
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid211364

I'd be happy to participate, but I prefer to read my books on paper, and paper books take about 3 weeks to reach my house in Italy.
I could tolerate scanned/kindle versions but I'll probably never like txt version so in the worst case I'll be 3 weeks late.

容疑者Xの献身 would be my pick but on Wikipedia it says it's the third part of a series; I didn't read very well the article but what about starting with the first?

It's okay if you start late. We are so far planning to just make a forum for whichever books we end up with. If that book is vol. 3 of a series, I guess we won't do that one.

I can see people are already voting, especially for the Beginner book. That's good. Reading can be a very trying experience if you feel like you "aren't getting it". Hopefully the group read will help everyone reach the next level in their reading.

I just had a look at 君にしか聞こえない

At last a book I can read without looking up every other fsdfking word. Count me in

Oh, the books haven't been decided? I already started reading AYNIK...

anotherjohn Wrote:I just had a look at 君にしか聞こえない

At last a book I can read without looking up every other fsdfking word. Count me in

Plus it's a great read. I love his bucked up imagination.

EDIT: Some day, I'll remember there's a profanity filter. Sigh.

Bokusenou Wrote:Oh, the books haven't been decided? I already started reading AYNIK...

What's wrong with that?

Edit: PS It's a front-runner now for 'advanced' book and I'm kind of excited to read that one, but I'm pretty slow. Having a thread for the book on this page will be good because whenever someone starts reading it it will get bumped.

So I'm really digging the beginner/intermediate/advanced ranking of books here. I looked on the wiki and didn't see a list of books ranked by difficulty. Am I missing something? If we don't have one yet I'll go ahead and create a books page ranked by difficulty that we can build upon as a community.

tashippy Wrote:

Bokusenou Wrote:Oh, the books haven't been decided? I already started reading AYNIK...

What's wrong with that?

Edit: PS It's a front-runner now for 'advanced' book and I'm kind of excited to read that one, but I'm pretty slow. Having a thread for the book on this page will be good because whenever someone starts reading it it will get bumped.

If it doesn't end up getting picked, won't it have been a waste? (though I guess I could always finish it on my own) Or are we doing more than one book per level? Glad to see it's a front-runner though.^^

Gaias, I took those levels from NickT's page. It would be great if we developed a wiki library with levels.

Bokusenou, I just figured it can't hurt to read more, but also, if enough people show an interest, it can be a next book, but the thread can open up whenever, so it's there as a resource and discussion board for whoever happens to read it whenever.