Book review: “Shogun” by James Clavell

February 20th, 2010 at 2:30 pm

A short and informal review for this one.

Nice book, very well written. Lots of fun to read – the plot is gripping, the characters are well developed, and the historical background is fascinating. Japanese customs are very unusual, very interesting, very inspiring. Though they don’t always make sense, the author did a great job promoting mutual tolerance in conflicting issues. Not all western customs make sense either… Moreover, he excellently presents the mind-blowingly complex politics in which the various rulers of Japan were involved. It’s fun to read how smart one should’ve been to succeed in that world.

One gripe though – the book is too long, almost 1200 pages. Could’ve been shorter, although not by much.

Related posts:

  1. Book review: “Finite and infinite games” by James Carse
  2. Book review: “Diamond chariot” by Boris Akunin
  3. Book review: “Best of Ruby Quiz” by James Gray
  4. Book review: “The ambassadors” by Henry James
  5. Book review: “The double helix” by James Watson

One Response to “Book review: “Shogun” by James Clavell”

  1. abelNo Gravatar Says:

    Eli, I remember reading this book a long long time ago; and Tai Pan — I remember not being able to put the books down. There’s also another book that I remember distinctly being in the same level like the two — The Pillars of the Earth –

Leave a Reply

To post code with preserved formatting, enclose it in `backticks` (even multiple lines)