Rating: 
Summary: ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS IVE EVER READ !!!!
Review: I HAVE READ THIS BOOK SO MANY TIMES ITS THREADBARE. IM NOW BUYING ANOTHER ONE. WHAT CAN I SAY , THIS BOOK HAS EVERYTHING IN IT. ROMANCE, ADVENTURE, MYSTERY, LOVE AND HATE SO BEAUTIFULY WRITTEN ABOUT. TWO CULTURES COMPLETLY DIFFERANT OR ARE THEY REALLY ? MR. CLAVELL WRITES SO WELL YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE THERE. I CAN SMELL THE SEA AND PRACTICALLY TASTE THE RICE. OUT OF ALL HIS BOOKS THAT HE WROTE THIS IS MY FAVORITE. JAMES CLAVELL WILL TRUELY BE MISSED BY THIS FAN OF HIS. SHOGUN IS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS IVE EVER READ AND IVE READ THOUSANDS OF BOOKS. ENJOY IT
Rating:
Summary: Cancel all your plans, you won't be going far!
Review: Shogun deals with John Blackthorne,and his crew who ends up shipwrecked in Japan. What seemed like a primitive culture, turned out to be an advanced and scheming one.
This book deals with corruption, love, and power to the fullest degree. Yet educates you in Japanese history so nicely, that you will find a new respect. Heck, you'll even learn a few Japanese words.
Rating:
Summary: James Clavell's Shogun sits high on the throne of excellency
Review: by far, this is the greatest novel that i have ever experienced.
james clavell has created a vision of feudal japan that is
so vivid, the reader literally thinks he/she is there. there
were many occasions where i decided to put the book down for
a few minutes, aand i was actually expecting my family to bow to me, greet me with smiles, and offer me some cha or
sake! HA HA HA! never before has anything of that magnitude
occured after i read a novel. i would strongly urge ANYONE
to read shogun, because i don't see how you can be dissapointed.
if you didn't enjoy shogun, or you don't think you want to
read it, it's very possible that your insanity is can be
documented & treated. so, by all means, go get treated....
ha ha ha....yes, this is a great book indeed. read it...
DO IT! ha ha!
Rating:
Summary: The Real John Blackthorne
Review: Like Toranaga, Ishido, Mariko, and the other major characters, John Blackthorne was a real person. From W. Scott Morton (1994, McGraw-Hill),
"Japan: Its History and Culture," pages 118-119: "It was by a strange accident that he [Ieyasu, or 'Yoshi Toranaga'] found one of his most valuable experts, a shipbuilder, Will Adams,
pilot-major of a small Dutch flotilla, who was one of the
few survivors of a typhoon which severely damaged the flagship, the 'Liefde' [Erasmus]. ..." Adams was from Kent, England. In his youth, he
was an apprentice to a shipwright. Adams warned Ieyasu about Spain's
and Portugal's desire to propagate Catholocism into Japan, and said that
other nations (England and Holland) were interested only in trade. Now, for what became of Blackthorne after Toranaga's victory at Sekigahara... he acquired a large estate in Japan, and married a
Japanese woman. Adams never returned to England. He died in Japan, laden with honors (presumably from Ieyasu), but still longing for
his homeland. There is a monument to Will Adams in Japan, near the sea. Ieyasu, possibly because of Adams' influence, expelled the Christain
missionaries a while later: Lord Kiyama (Takayama Ukon) left Japan in
exile to Manila, where he died shortly afterward. William A. Levinson http://www.pic.net/~wlevinso "The Crisis Manager"
Rating:
Summary: Excellent historical fiction, well written
Review: It really happened: only the names have been changed...
Yoshi Toranaga was Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the
Tokugawa Shogunate. There really was a Battle of Sekigahara, although Ishido (Ishida Mitsunari) was beheaded, not buried
while passers-by sawed at his neck... Toda Buntaro
(Lord Hosokawa) had a Christian wife, Gracia (who appears
in the story as Mariko). The Taiko was Toyotomi Hideyoshi,
and he really did order an invasion of Korea. The dictator
Goroda was Oda Nobunaga, and he was a nasty S.O.B., even
by daimyo standards.
http://www.pic.net/~wlevinso "The Crisis Manager"
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Summary: Out of this world!!
Review: And you thought only science fiction could take you beyond
where you are today. James Clavell submerges you in 16th
century Japan where you experience the power struggles,
romance, and even the language. By the end of the novel, you you will have seen peasants getting chopped up for not bowing low enough, samurai commiting seppuku for arriving late, and Jesuit priests grovelling for converts. This is probably
the best book I've ever read in terms of connecting with
the characters' own triumphs and tribulations. Wakarimasu ka? Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Became one with the story
Review: I know this is an old book by contemporary standards, but I just read it. WOW! I became one with the book as Blackthorne, and the story and all the love and excitement and you name it. I could hardly put it down. Such a wonderful story if you don't get caught up in the historical facts of the time, which the book is obviously based upon. I was once a seafarer myself. I just became Blackthorne as I read the story, and I found myself loving Mariko too. How could could any man not??? hehe. Such a wonderful story of deceit, hate, brothership, obedience, love and hate, savagry and brutality, and just a new awakening to an Englishman who knew nothing of wordly life other than that of his loving England and his life on the high seas. I was just lost in the story. I wish I could meet a woman like Mariko today. Such a most wonderful and beautiful woman in fiction. I wish I could find one who exists today. If they only did, WOW!!! hehe??? I recommend this book to anyone who is a romantic and loves a good yarn and is not upset by some of the violence and pictures of brutality.
Rating:
Summary: Truly Moving
Review: This book has been reviewed and re-reviewed so many times on this site, that I will not trouble you with another rehashed plot synopsis or analysis of the characters. Instead, I give you my core impressions of the novel.
Shogun, in all of its titanic 1100+ page glory, humbles the reader with its sheer grace and majesty. Clavell crafts his characters in painstaking, loving completeness, and is just as attentive to the plot and finer nuances of the book. You will fall in love with the characters, exult in their triumphs and cry for their failings. It is a story about love and honor and loyalty and doubt and searching and a hundred thousand other human passions.
Clavell posesses a gift for bringing foreign cultures and places alive with vivid, piercing reality. You will feel the cold bite of steel, smell the sea air off of Osaka, see the radiant, red dawn before a battle, and cherish the brilliant world that Clavell has woven together so perfectly. This book is perhaps the most real work I have ever read. Every sense is catered to, every emotion played upon, every passion and horror felt with stunning truth.
I can think of no greater praise than to say this: You will lose yourself in this book, completely. And you certainly won't mind.
Rating:
Summary: Shogun's One of the Best!
Review: Shogun, written by James Clavell is a great Japanese historical fiction. The book is filled with much information about how the past might have been. How Japan was hostile to foreigners, any kind of foreigner, since they wished to remain isolated from the world, how they thought mostly about honor, loyalty and death, just really how samurai thought back then. I liked the book because I love anime and manga. And since the book was based on Japanese culture, I decided to read it. The theme was quite mature, yet I ignored the inappropriate parts. The book went beyong my expectations and I was quite happy with the ending. How the war was solved and how I predicted it should have been.
Rating: 
Summary: Shogun the book is a waste...Shogun the TV Movie a gem
Review: I was first introduced to Shogun via the TV mini-series. It is a gem. Usually the book is even better than the media version. Not so. The book is full of cursing & trash talk. It is tedious in plot and story development. The only saving part of the book is the addendum page (yes, just 1) that "completes" the Shogun saga.
Avoid the book, buy the DVD version of the story - interesting, entertaining, educational and well crafted.
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