I’d love to know your thoughts when you finish, if you don’t mind, as I will probably end up reading it eventually even if it isn’t as part of this book club.
3 Likes
Sounds like we should make a book club purely for linguistics/language based stuff. I absolutely devour these types of books too 
. There are so many really good ones in relation to Japanese floating around on Amazon.
3 Likes
It is something I have been meaning to get into as due to my job (teaching English) I have accidentally gotten a lot of exposure to grammatical and linguistic terms from skimming various blog posts and grammar guides and textbooks. My knowledge is sometimes quite patchy though so I would love to get into it a bit more systematically. I actually find things about the English language/grammar in Japanese to be quite interesting as a learner of Japanese, as someone who is just interested in languages, and also as an English teacher. Sometimes I will read a description of English grammar in Japanese and it will totally change the way I think about English and Japanese.
I also want to do some dedicated listening to ゆる言語学ラジオ and some other smaller linguistics youtube channels this year, I think probably in the summer - just binge a couple hundred videos if I can find the time and the will. We’ll see how that turns out though as there are a million other domains I also need to improve in as well （笑）
Anyway, I would be totally down for it. My preference would probably be for either shorter but quite dense things, like actual academic papers, or for longer but lighter things, kind of more popular books aimed at a general but educated audience. I think between all my other little reading projects I would struggle to find time for something that is both long and heavy.
5 Likes
Right there with you 
3 Likes
BTW, if most of you are interested in the linguistics topic then please go ahead. I can read Star Wars on my own, so it’s not a problem. That way you don’t have to create yet another book club thread. Then again, I’m only speaking about myself, and not others who might be interested in this book club level.
4 Likes
Was just a joke . I am equally up for any genre and I would say that more often than not, novels will be chosen.
1 Like
Either way haha, I’m down for whatever. Starwars works for me.
3 Likes
You guys, I’m being serious though. I honestly don’t mind at all, lol.
In any case, the votes will decide 
.
2 Likes
If I’m interested in what’s chosen I’m in.
2 Likes
Poll is now available at the top of the post! Please vote for the title that you are interested in reading by the end of day, Sunday, 24th of March. I will allow for all timezones to pass through Sunday before locking in the winner 
.
Detailed rules etc for the book club will be announced once the book has been decided.
1 Like
Voting over! Winner - エピーソード4 新たな希望
More details to follow soon.
2 Likes
Nice!
I’m gonna go ahead and purchase this, as well as the other books voted for the other levels. Thanks for setting this up!!
2 Likes
Official book club rules available for viewing here. Keep in mind that these are rules that have been created based on our best estimate of how book clubs will proceed. Things may change in the future.
I will also be editing the original content of this post to better reflect a long term starting point and guide for users that join this level.
2 Likes
@Asher, I don’t suppose you could post a link to the exact edition of the book? I am pretty sure there is only one version fitting the title in the poll but it’d be nice to have a link just to check everyone is on the same page, literally.
2 Likes
Sorry my bad for not getting this one done sooner! Will organize the whole advanced group post a bit later today, but here’s the winner for now.
2 Likes
I should’ve posted a link for this, especially given I was the one who suggested it based on one of Asher’s previous threads, so that’s my bad too. Anyway, this series of books can also be found on both Book Walker and Book Live (in case anyone prefers them):
I went with Book Live only because the text looks much sharper when zooming in, than the Book Walker web version. I think they use vector files to accomplish this (or at least that’s what it looks like to me).
Anyway, just wanted to offer those two options.
2 Likes
Didn’t even notice this when you had just posted it. I actually have the Japanese audio book for this! It was really good. Haven’t read it though, just listened.
2 Likes
I just noticed, when looking at your screenshot of the book, that the “A New Hope” part 「新たなる希望」is using the old form of Na-Adjectives. I was subconsciously reading it as 「新たな希望」until now, lol.
I learned about this old form a couple of months ago, as I stumbled upon an online writing that explained the origins of する verbs, ずる and じる, which stem from an even older Japanese verb form (which I can’t recall right now).
Interesting that they decided to use it for the subtitle of this book. I’d expected it on older books, or books that are about old times, but not one about the far future.
3 Likes
You’re not the only person. I actually thought that was the name of the book my entire first read through of it! Probably similar to English where you just see a few letters of a word and let your brain fill in what you think it is going to be as you glaze over to the next word. 
3 Likes