Shōgun (Asian Saga, #1) in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Feb 01, 2008 Kerry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, japan

Every few years, my mom reads this book in three days. Staying up until 4am, the works. I saw it in Goodwill one day, and decided to tape a cover to it and read it myself.

Sure, it's very white-centric, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it. It's both violent, and soft and beautiful. I hope most of the facts are right, because it made me feel like I understand what Japan is like during that time.

I also recommend the miniseries, if you're willing to watch it with a grain of salt. ...more

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Nov 06, 2008 Jaime rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-2010, historical-fiction, historical-1600s, japan

If you’ve never read this, I highly recommend it. It’s definitely a major time-investment (it took me over 3 weeks to read), but well worth it. Clavell has created an intricate portrait of early 17th century Japan, from the perspective of both insiders and outsiders. And you learn almost immediately that the man could certainly write an action scene. I know very little about ships, but I could picture this perfectly:

He exerted all his strength as the rudder bit into the torrent. The whole ship s ...more

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Oct 26, 2009 Jen rated it liked it

Shelves: world-literature, historical-fiction

I'm a great lover of literature and so far I'm having trouble with this book. I'm 400 pages in and I feel like the story has barely started which is frustrating to say the least. It's also probably true since I still have 700 pages to go. Also I feel like maybe there are some racist undertones that make me uncomfortable. I can't tell if this is intentional or because of when the book was written but there's something about it that rubs me the wrong way. There are also parts that makes me feel li ...more

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