Bunpro Book Club (Various levels)

That’s a tricky one. I would assume most people would want to keep costs down, and games are usually a lot more expensive than books. It also would exclude a lot of people that don’t have whatever console etc the game was on.

As for eroge, I would say probably that the advanced category would be the only one that the genre might be considered, as there would be a bit less onus on us (Bunpro) as a platform to choose suitable topics. I really don’t mind what people want to read at the more difficult end of the spectrum when they are completely self sufficient, but in the lower levels when people are still getting used to the language I think it would possibly be something that presents too many challenges. I don’t wanna tell people what to and what not too read though, and am also of the opinion that all vocabulary is good vocabulary, so it would be something left to the voters.

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Speaking of costs, would it be possible to include a stipulation that once every x books, something freely available online is chosen? That way nobody is unable to participate due to book cost.

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I’m all for free or as cheap as possible resources being used whenever possible so the highest amount of people can participate. As for 100% using something free every x number of books, it would depend on the way people voted. Participants would be allowed to suggest whatever they want, free or paid, and the winning vote would be chosen.

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I think its ok to read them for free and then if you enjoyed it pay for them later though I guess that depends on people’s thoughts on the matter

mod edit: removed link to illegal content

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Oh, that’s awesome! Thanks for sharing that link. What others do you have? This would make the book reading MUCH more accessible to everyone.

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Library Genesis is always useful. Not sure about the extend of their JP archives but all I have read so far I have taken from there.

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Just so it is clear that is a pirating website. I believe the majority of the books listed there are LNs so if you want to pirate regular books then you need to do it elsewhere. I don’t pirate myself really so can’t help with that more but I think due to how strict Japan is on piracy finding pirated versions of most Japanese books is not as easy as it is for English where seemingly everything ever published is a Google search away. If you’re interested in pirating then the moe way discord server is pretty hot on that kind of thing, I am told.

My personal preference is to buy the digital version from amazon Japan, which is usually fairly cheap(500-1000 yen), and then convert it to an epub file type using Calibre and read with whatever reader you like. I’ve seen pirated copies of some novels full of scan errors and if you’re a beginner you wouldn’t even know they’re errors.

As far as the book club goes, I believe once these things are underway people normally can be pointed in the direction of how to legally acquire the book from various places or the epub file is shared with them by other users or they can go and pirate it if that’s their preference (which naturally I’d point out is illegal and so probably shouldn’t be promoted through an official Bunpro book club…).

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You are correct, of course.

I was merely thinking of making things easier for the sake of the Book Club and not about the legal and ethical ramifications of it. That’s my bad. I’d rather support the artists, especially if the books end up being as cheap as you mentioned. My apologies :pray:.

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Yeaaaaaaaaaah no direct links to pirated works please & thank you :joy:

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You got it; from now on, indirect links only!

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In WK there are four levels of book clubs and I haven’t seen one instance where the book selection/reading came from a free source! On the other hand, I have seen comments about LOTS of free reading material out there on the web, if you want to practice reading.

Hmmmm, isn’t that what the book clubs do…practice reading? As long as I have to buy a book, I don’t see myself joining a book club. I haven’t started ‘reading’ yet, but when I do, if I can find suitable material to read for free, then that’s what I’ll do.

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even Duolingo uses Bunpro huh?

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In regards to pirating, yes we will not be condoning the use of any pirated material. Once books are decided upon, I will try to include a few links to where users can legally purchase the book (usually Kobo, Amazon, or Bookwalker), or in some cases legally read for free, considering that a lot of light novels start as web novels, and the web novel version is often archived on a web novel community page where authors get their start).

However in saying that, I am not going to be forcing people to send me their receipts of purchase before joining the read along.

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But this requires removing the DRM? I remember reading somewhere that lately Amazon has made it difficult to do that for the titles released after a certain date (not sure since when). But if it still works that would be great.

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I don’t know the technical details but I use Calibre plus some add on I downloaded from github and it can convert the azw3 files to epub (or whatever else) just fine. The most recently released book I have used this with came out in the summer of last year so if anything changed then it presumably happened after that.

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Calibre combined with KindleUnpack, and DeDRMTools are the addons that I believe most people use so that they can read their books on any device. DeDRM removes the DRM by checking the book was purchased upon importing into Calibre, and KindleUnpack extracts all images etc into an external folder in the case of manga etc. For light novels, usually just converting the imported azw3 to an epub is enough to make everything display correctly.

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This was just the kick start I needed to start reading in Japanese!

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Yeah, WK and BP! That’s my Duo lingo :slight_smile:

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Oh! I like the squiggle books! Especially the ones with cartoons inside! I don’t know why they accidentally print them backwards though! -.-"

Someone please kindly inform me of what book to buy for the beginner. I could probably do above beginner but I am very busy often so I would prefer to go on easy street.

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There’s a separate thread for each level. We’re still in the ‘taking suggestions for books’ stage. I think @Asher is going to put up a poll with the suggestions on Friday so we can decide what book to read first.

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