Oh, yeah, that's true. BTW, Border isn't an innocent book, and Grasshopper isn't available in text format. I didn't check all of the books, though someone can probably do a quick search on JPDDL to find out if the rest are innocent or not.

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

Yeah, I've been the first to mention Zero no Tsukaima in this topic, but now that I've read a few line of Kimi ni shika ecc. I can see why it's the forerunner in the poll, it seems even easier and definitely more interesting. I've read the Otsuichi's story in "Read Real Japanese Fiction Short Stories" and I liked it!

sunehiro Wrote: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?

You could try to convert them to mobi. I don't know how well the conversion in japanese works, but it's worth a try!

Vote for 七瀬ふたたび! I've been wanting to read that for a while but I mistakenly thought it wasn't an innocent book. It's about a girl with the ability to read people's thoughts who finds herself being hunted by a shady organisation.

sunehiro Wrote: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.

Try converting it with this http://a2k.aill.org/text.html

Just copy paste the whole book in to that text box then click pdf化 and it will convert it to a pdf sized to be readable on a kindle. You can also select different text sizes as it pleases you.

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

Cool. I've emailed Fabrice to create me a Wiki account. I'll get a page put together sometime this week/weekend.

Looks like ALL YOU NEED IS KILL is in the top running for advanced. Think I'll tackle that. GO also looks really interesting, though, after having read the first several paragraphs. 本は山ほどあるけど、時間は少ない。。。

Also, I should probably finish off this 赤川次郎 book before we get started. :-p He's another great mystery author writing at an intermediate level. His books are extremely easy to read and quite enjoyable. Most of my Japanese friends report reading at least one of his books when they were teenagers. I'm away from my network drive at the moment, though, so I can't check whether or not any of his material is innocent. I accidentally stumbled across him when I found a couple of his books at the local used book store. I stocked up on about 10 of his other books when I visited 本だらけ in Sydney back in June.

As for reading txt books, you can use JNovelFormatter to convert them to HTML. I just discovered that the GoodReader app for the iPad works very well for reading JNovelFormatter output.

https://code.google.com/p/jnovel-formatter/

So it looks like we already have this page - it's just not up to date, and it comes under the weird heading of "text". I'll update.

http://rtkwiki.koohii.com/wiki/Japanese_Fiction

Okay, books chosen:
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　

If you start on a book that isn't chosen, we may choose it next time and your reading it will help us know if it's worthwhile.

Development of the wiki will help create a sort of learners' library, while the threads will act as a sort of A) Rough draft for the wiki, and B) Place for discussion, questions, anything I can't predict but will come from the curious and eager minds of Koohii人達。

If I don't do it first, feel free to start threads in the Group Study section of the site Index for individual books.

Thanks, everyone!

Well, good luck guys. They are all good books so I hope you enjoy them.

Maybe 七瀬ふたたび will win out in the next round, I thought it was a pretty good book and well worth a read. Don't let the fact that it is the second book in a trilogy deter you, it works as a stand alone novel and in fact I didn't like book 1. If I had read that first I probably would have never bothered with 七瀬ふたたび which would have been a shame.

Next thing for me is to figure out how to convert text files to proper ebook format, with vertical text, furigana support and dictionary lookup enabled so that I can read innocent books on my Kindle. It's not urgent, as I own proper legit Kindle versions of all 3 of the above, but as the project moves on to new books I will need to figure this out. I recall some software from way back that did this, but I can't remember the name and have bought a new computer since then.

I looked into the PDF and HTML solutions posted above, but they are not really suitable for my needs. I don't intend to sit at home and read these on my PC, I do most of my reading on trains, in the park or in cafes. Although I could transfer the PDF to my kindle, and text is selectable, I still couldn't get the built in dictionary to look up words.

Does anyone know how to do this?

If you can get an HTML or txt version, you can use free software called Calibre to convert it to Kindle format and then transfer it to your Kindle over USB.

NickT Wrote:I looked into the PDF and HTML solutions posted above, but they are not really suitable for my needs. I don't intend to sit at home and read these on my PC, I do most of my reading on trains, in the park or in cafes. Although I could transfer the PDF to my kindle, and text is selectable, I still couldn't get the built in dictionary to look up words.

Does anyone know how to do this?

I assume Calibre works, but I was googling for alternatives because I wasn't sure what it would do with furigana/etc.

For another option, I found the blog here outlining how to use AozoraEpub - http://ebookyaro.blogspot.jp/2012/10/kin...epub3.html

It's based on an older version of the program. You can get the current version here: http://www18.atwiki.jp/hmdev/pages/21.html

The new version cuts out the steps of turning it from their epub file into a Kindle mobi file and will just do it for you, provided that you have the free kindlegen program from amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000765211

All 3 of the selected books here appear to have converted fine and the dictionary pops up for any selected words. Hopefully that will help.

penguins42v Wrote:For another option, I found the blog here outlining how to use AozoraEpub - http://ebookyaro.blogspot.jp/2012/10/kin...epub3.html

...

All 3 of the selected books here appear to have converted fine and the dictionary pops up for any selected words. Hopefully that will help.

Thanks penguins42v, that is exactly what I was looking for.

Welcome to the forum :-)

I'm seriously overwhelmed with the amount of books on the dropbox files! o.o
Is there any way to go straight to the books you want? Like a search feature?

I downloaded 永遠のことば, though I barely know anything about it.

Anyway, so excited for being now able to read japanese books on my kobo!

Well, I reckon you can use Ctrl + F and type the book you want.
Btw, how can you get a japanese-english dictionary in your kindle? Do you have to pay for it?

Givala Wrote:Btw, how can you get a japanese-english dictionary in your kindle? Do you have to pay for it?

I paid for mine, I think it was this one: http://www.amazon.co.jp/Japanese-English...-Christian

Back then it was the only option (about a year ago). I don't don't know if there are other free or innocent alternatives now.

I don't regret it though, its quite cheap, works well and is extremely useful. The inbuilt J-J works pretty well too but it slows down my reading too much to try and decipher the definitions. A word of warning though, the E-J dictionary linked above only works on the Kindle Paperwhite - It doesn't work on the Kindle Fire HD, which is what I owned when I first bought the dictionary without reading the small print.

NickT Wrote:

penguins42v Wrote:For another option, I found the blog here outlining how to use AozoraEpub - http://ebookyaro.blogspot.jp/2012/10/kin...epub3.html

...

All 3 of the selected books here appear to have converted fine and the dictionary pops up for any selected words. Hopefully that will help.

Thanks penguins42v, that is exactly what I was looking for.

Welcome to the forum :-)

Is this possible to do this on a Mac? I got the txt of kiminishika on my paperwhite with calibre, but I can't use the j-j dictionary lookup and the furigana isn't lined up.

Guys guys. I found a free J-E dictionary for the kindle! Don't know how well it works, but you might as well check it out.
https://github.com/jrfonseca/jmdict-kindle
He also has a version of the edict2 https://github.com/jmettraux/edict2-kindle

Givala Wrote:Well, I reckon you can use Ctrl + F and type the book you want.
Btw, how can you get a japanese-english dictionary in your kindle? Do you have to pay for it?

Kindle Paperwhites can download Progressive J-E & E-J, and Daijisen J-J dictionaries for free.

tashippy Wrote:

NickT Wrote:

penguins42v Wrote:For another option, I found the blog here outlining how to use AozoraEpub - http://ebookyaro.blogspot.jp/2012/10/kin...epub3.html

...

All 3 of the selected books here appear to have converted fine and the dictionary pops up for any selected words. Hopefully that will help.

Thanks penguins42v, that is exactly what I was looking for.

Welcome to the forum :-)

Is this possible to do this on a Mac? I got the txt of kiminishika on my paperwhite with calibre, but I can't use the j-j dictionary lookup and the furigana isn't lined up.

It won't be vertical and such, but if you convert the txt file to mobi in calibre you'll be able to use dictionary lookups.

For those of us dead-treeing it, 君にしか聞こえない has a furigana-full version.

I'll start reading when I finish my current book, so probably next week.

Bokusenou Wrote:

tashippy Wrote:Is this possible to do this on a Mac? I got the txt of kiminishika on my paperwhite with calibre, but I can't use the j-j dictionary lookup and the furigana isn't lined up.

It won't be vertical and such, but if you convert the txt file to mobi in calibre you'll be able to use dictionary lookups.

Yes, It works on a Mac. I just tried it and it worked perfectly. If you use the software penguins42v linked then it comes out with vertical text, furigana lined up and the dictionary lookup works. If you can find a picture of the front cover of the book you can even use that and it comes out as the front cover when you are browsing through your books on your device.

Its a two stage process, you have to convert the txt to epub first and then to a mobi using different programs. penguins42v hinted that there is a way to do it in 1 step but I couldn't personally figure that out, but it is easy enough anyway. Don't be intimidated by the fact the programs are in Japanese, it is basically just drag and drop and very easy to use.

Of course I was testing it with Aozora books, but it should work exactly the same with innocent ones? The formatting is identical if I recall correctly.

Is 君にしか聞こえない definitely an innocent book? I can't find it but I might be missing some. I'm just going to go ahead and start Go now anyway.

NickT Wrote:Maybe 七瀬ふたたび will win out in the next round, I thought it was a pretty good book and well worth a read. Don't let the fact that it is the second book in a trilogy deter you, it works as a stand alone novel and in fact I didn't like book 1. If I had read that first I probably would have never bothered with 七瀬ふたたび which would have been a shame.

Thanks, I actually didn't realise it wasn't the beginning of the series. I'll probably just go ahead and read them once I'm done with Go. It's not like I need the book club's permission. XD

Hopefully next time we'll also pick a book that you haven't read. I'm not sure it's the best idea to insist that nominations be for books we've already read.

Splatted Wrote:Is 君にしか聞こえない definitely an innocent book? I can't find it but I might be missing some. I'm just going to go ahead and start Go now anyway.

Pretty sure it is innocent, you might want to try searching the name of the author, or replacing some of the kanji in the name with its kana equivalent...

Splatted Wrote:Thanks, I actually didn't realise it [七瀬ふたたび] wasn't the beginning of the series.

Its only a series in the sense that they share the same main character. The story from book1 [家族八景] is unrelated as far as I can tell, and I thought it was a bit dull.

I haven't attempted エディプスの恋人 yet, the third book, so I don't know how closely related it is.

Splatted Wrote:Hopefully next time we'll also pick a book that you haven't read. I'm not sure it's the best idea to insist that nominations be for books we've already read.

Hopefully :-) I'm happy to get recommendations from books other people have read and enjoyed, but if I'm going to take a shot in the dark it makes more sense for me to pick something that I think I will like, rather than something someone else thinks they might like. Also I don't particularly want the guilt of making 20 people read a book that turns out to be crap.

Maybe next time I start a new book, I'll make some posts about it and see if anyone is inclined to join in. I'll wait till I'm a few chapters in, though, just in case. I'm not entirely enthralled by the book I am reading atm, but it is quite short so I will stick it out.

Splatted Wrote:Is 君にしか聞こえない definitely an innocent book? I can't find it but I might be missing some. I'm just going to go ahead and start Go now anyway.

Kimi is written in kana, I couldn't find it either at first.

Thanks I found it. I'm going to start with 君にしか聞こえない since it's short and easy. Not sure if I'll read Go after that or not.

@NickT: That makes sense about the recommendations. I guess that means we're just going to have to accept that some people are going to be left out of some rounds then.

Good. I will try 君にしか聞こえない too. Will there be a Goodreads group or something like that for the discussion?

guian Wrote:Good. I will try 君にしか聞こえない too. Will there be a Goodreads group or something like that for the discussion?

I think we were going to start a thread for each book in the Group Study section. I don't know much about Goodreads. If you think that website has useful features, or it'd be good to use as a general book club community so we could keep tabs on what each other is reading, let me know.