Customer Reviews (1)

Master Pilot Blackthorne Conquers Nippon Islands.
I was first attracted to "Shogun"'s world by the TV series. First puzzled, then absorbed, waiting each week for the next step. As soon as it finished I rushed to the book store to buy my copy.
I wasn't disappointed. If the series is good, the book is better. Mr. Clavell constructs a master piece describing how two so different symbolic universes interact and react to each other. European vision and values embodied by Master Pilot Blackthorne, Japanese ones by Toranaga-sama and Mariko-san. Characters are based on real-life people: Master Pilot William Adams and Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Situated in the late 16th century Japan, at the critical transitional momentfrom a feudal state to a centralized administration (the Shogunate) that will last until 19th century, the story depicts the struggle of Toranaga to be designed Shogun..
Master Pilot Blackthorne, his ship and his crew are thrown into Japanese shores by a mighty storm.
After a couple of shocking encounters with Portuguese Catholic priests and Japanese hieratic Samurai, Master Pilot starts a rollercoaster trip.
He will, step by step, discovers the values of Samurai code, learn Japanese, understand the complex psychology of the people surrounding him and fall in love with a noble woman. Finally he will be converted in a true Samurai with a high rank in Toranaga's entourage.

Mr. Clavell has done a great research of the period and presents it without boring the reader. The characters, even the secondary ones, are described in depth, penetrating their motivations and rationale.
After "Shogun" I was eager to read more Clavell's books. I picked "King Rat", "Tai Pan" and "Noble House". They are good, but "Shogun" is a master piece.
There is also a very interesting book about the real historical character: "Samurai Williams" authored by Giles Milton.
Enjoy this reading!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
... Read more

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This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: The Great Escape, to Sir, With Love, 633 Squadron, the Satan Bug, the Fly, the Last Valley, Watusi. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: The Great Escape is a 1963 American film about an escape by Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp during World War II. It is based on the book of the same name by Paul Brickhill, a novel of the true story of a mass escape from Stalag Luft III. The film was made by the Mirisch Company, released by United Artists, produced and directed by John Sturges, and stars Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough. Having wasted enormous resources on recapturing Allied prisoners of war (POWs), the Germans move the most determined to a new, high-security prisoner of war camp. The commandant, Luftwaffe Colonel von Luger, tells the senior British officer, Group Capt Ramsey, "There will be no escapes from this camp." Ramsey replies that it is their duty to try to escape. After several failed escape attempts on the first day, the POWs settle into the prison camp. Gestapo and SS agents bring Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett (RAF) to the camp and deliver him to von Luger. Known as "Big X," Bartlett is the principal organizer of escapes and Gestapo agent Kuhn suggests that he be kept under the permanent security confinement, which von Luger, contemptuous of the Nazis, will only make a "note" of. As Kuhn leaves, he warns Bartlett that if he escapes again, he will be shot. Bartlett is put with the rest of the POWs. Locked up with "every escape artist in Germany", Bartlett immediately plans the greatest escape attemptedtunnels for breaking out 250 prisoners. The intent is to "confuse and harass the enemy" to the point that as many troops and resources as possible will be wasted on finding PO...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=181229 ... Read more

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Chapters: Jorge Luis Borges, Wolfgang Pauli, Audrey Hepburn, Paul Feyerabend, James Clavell, Rainer Maria Rilke, Patricia Highsmith, Jacques Plante, Douglas Jardine, Vince Taylor, Jennie Faulding Taylor, Dinu Lipatti, Otto Frank, Robert Louis-Dreyfus, Princess Farial of Egypt, Robert Kroon, Daniel Schmid, Viktor Paskov, Adolf H. Lundin, Klaus Johann Jacobs, Jim Koleff, Adhemar Schwitzguébel, Carlo Clerici, Michel Soutter, Monica Morell. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 198. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Audrey Hepburn (4 May 1929 ) 20 January 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian. Born in Ixelles, Belgium as Audrey Kathleen Ruston, Hepburn spent her childhood chiefly in the Netherlands, including German-occupied Arnhem, Netherlands, during the Second World War. She studied ballet in Arnhem and then moved to London in 1948, where she continued to train in ballet and worked as a photographer's model. She appeared in a handful of European films before starring in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi. Hepburn played the lead female role in Roman Holiday (1953), winning an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for her performance. She also won a Tony Award for her performance in Ondine (1954). Hepburn became one of the most successful film actresses in the world and performed with such notable leading men as Gregory Peck, Rex Harrison, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, William Holden, Fred Astaire, Peter O'Toole, and Albert Finney. She won BAFTA Awards for her performances in The Nun's Story (1959) and Charade (1963), and received Academy Award nominations for Sabrina (1954), The Nun's Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and Wait Until Dark (1967). She starred as Eliza Doolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady (1964), becoming only the third actor to...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=52139 ... Read more

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This digital document, covering the life and work of James (duMaresq) Clavell, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 4622 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

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Chapters: John Cade, James Clavell, Arthur Percival, Pappy Boyington, Walter Peeler, Laurens Van Der Post, Thomas J. H. Trapnell, Michael Woodruff, Lawrence Turner, Edgar Whitcomb, Richard O'kane, James Devereux, Arthur W. Wermuth, John David Provoo, Edward Dunlop, Richard Antrim, Frank Buckles, Jacob Deshazer, Philip Toosey, Charles Groves Wright Anderson, Harold Keith Johnson, Lionel Colin Matthews, Albert Coates, Ronald Searle, Stan Harris, Frank Bell, Frank Kendall Everest, Jr., Samuel Abraham Goldblith, Louis Zamperini, Winfield S. Cunningham, David Murray-Lyon, Jack Edwards, Thomas F. Breslin, Mian Ghulam Jilani, Benigno G. Tabora, Vivian Bullwinkel, William Phillips, Charles S. Lawrence, Hein Ter Poorten, Jesse Monroe Knowles, Harold Atcherley, Alva R. Fitch, Reginald Swartz, C. R. Boxer, James Munro Bertram, Ringer Edwards, Charles Kaufman, Robert Brown Black, Carl Alexander Gibson-Hill, Merton Beckwith-Smith, Frank Pantridge, Edward P. King, Harwood Harrison, Joe Kieyoomia, Everett Francis Briggs, Billy King, Percy Herbert, Billy Baker, Frank Keith Simmons, Aiden Maccarthy, Ernie Curtis, Douglas Ford, Ashley George Old, Chase Nielsen, Ernest Gordon, Albert Braun, Thomas David Frank Evans, Robert V. R. Bassett, Richard H. Leir, Russell Braddon, Geoffrey Bingham, George Porteous, Oswald Wynd, Ruby Bradley, John Paul Burrough, Lewis Heath, Paul Maltby, George F. Moore, Pat Darling, Robert W. Levering, Dusty Miller, Philip Meninsky, Jack Bridger Chalker, Robert J. Meder, John Gilbert Newton Brown, Frank Twiss, Evelyn Turner, Owen J. Baggett, Christopher Michael Maltby, Charles Huxtable, Harold Maguire, Sid Scales, Stanley Warren, Geoff Edrich, Ralph Shaw, Clark Eldridge, Eric Lomax, Oliver Gordon, Ronald Shaw, Doug Mckenzie. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 400. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books withou...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=905639 ... Read more

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Aus Wikipedia. Nicht dargestellt. Auszug: James Clavell, born Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell (10 October 1924 - 7 September 1994) was a British (later naturalized American) novelist, screenwriter, director and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. Clavell is best known for his epic Asian Saga series of novels and their televised adaptations, along with such films as The Great Escape and To Sir, with Love. Born in Australia, Clavell was the son of Commander Richard Clavell, a British Royal Navy officer who was stationed in Australia on secondment from the Royal Navy to the Royal Australian Navy. In 1940, when Clavell finished his secondary schooling at Portsmouth Grammar School, he joined the Royal Artillery to follow his family tradition. Following the outbreak of World War II, at the age of 16 he joined the Royal Artillery in 1940, and was sent to Malaya to fight the Japanese. Wounded by machine-gun fire, he was eventually captured and sent to a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp on Java. Later he was transferred to Changi Prison in Singapore. Clavell suffered greatly at the hands of his Japanese captors. Changi was notorious for its poor living conditions, and according to the introduction to King Rat, written by Clavell, over 90% of the prisoners who entered Changi never walked out-although the actual mortality rate was under 1%. Clavell was reportedly saved, along with an entire battalion, by an American prisoner of war who later became the model for "The King" in Clavell's King Rat. By 1946, Clavell had risen to the rank of Captain, but a motorcycle accident ended his military career. He enrolled at the University of Birmingham, where he met April Stride, an actress, whom he married in 1951. Peter Marlowe is a character in the Clavell novels King Rat and Noble House, although he is also mentioned once (as a friend of Andrew Gavallan) in the novel Whirlwind. Featured much more prominently in King Rat, he is an English FEPO...http://booksllc.net/?l=de ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Empire and Era
The eve of the terms of Hong Kong when the British must turnover the colony to the Chinese. Fortunes and lives are at stake as the trading companies plot and plan their future in an uncertain atmosphere. James Clavell's TAI-PAN eludes all the pageantry, violence and tarnish grandeur of the city that "smells of money."
Nash Black, author of Indie Finalists WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and HAINTS.

A really deep insight in to human chaaracters and actions
I found this book to be very surprising in the depth of the human emotions, thoughts, actions that Clavell managed to capture and put into words. Indeed i find this book only rivalled by another of Clavell's book -Shogun ... Read more

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This is nonfiction commentary.Chapters: To Sir, With Love, the Last Valley, Where's Jack?. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 20. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: To Sir, with Love is a 1967 British drama film starring Sidney Poitier that deals with social and racial issues in an inner city school. James Clavell both directed and wrote the film's screenplay, based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by E. R. Braithwaite. The film's title song "To Sir, with Love", sung by Lulu, reached number one on the U.S. pop charts, and ultimately was Billboard magazine's #1 pop single for the year, 1967. The movie ranked number 27 on Entertainment Weekly' list of the 50 Best High School Movies. A television movie sequel, To Sir, with Love II, was released in 1996. The film is in a now well-established genre in which an idealistic teacher is confronted with a class of cynical teenagers, disengaged from conventional schooling. The first such film was Blackboard Jungle in 1955 in which, incidentally, Poitier played a disruptive pupil. The present film makes a departure in that it sets Poitier, a black teacher, in a predominantly white London school. The film touches on racial issues but concentrates on the usual tropes of teenage angst and inspirational leadership. The film portrays a sanitised and fictional Swinging London. Issues of sexual infatuation between a pupil and teacher were rather less sensitive in the 1960s than they were to become in the 21st century, as evidenced by the rather provocative strapline A story as fresh as the girls in their miniskirts. Subsequent films that explored the inspirational teacher drama theme include: Why Shoot the Teacher?, The Principal, Conrack, Stand and Deliver, Lean on Me, Dead Poets Society, Dangerous Minds, Music of the Heart, Take the Lead, ...http://booksllc.net/?id=182737 ... Read more

Product Description
This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Asian Saga, Films Directed by James Clavell, Screenplays by James Clavell, the Great Escape, to Sir, With Love, the Asian Saga, 633 Squadron, Struans, the Satan Bug, the Fly, the Children's Story, the Last Valley, Where's Jack?, Watusi. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: The Great Escape is a 1963 American film about an escape by Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp during World War II. It is based on the book of the same name by Paul Brickhill, a novel of the true story of a mass escape from Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Germany. The film was made by the Mirisch Company, released by United Artists, produced and directed by John Sturges, and stars Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough. Having wasted enormous resources on recapturing Allied prisoners of war (POWs), the Germans move the most determined to a new, high-security prisoner of war camp. The commandant, Luftwaffe Colonel von Luger, tells the senior British officer, Group Capt Ramsey, "There will be no escapes from this camp." Ramsey replies that it is their duty to try to escape. After several failed escape attempts on the first day, the POWs settle into the prison camp. Gestapo and SS agents bring Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett (RAF) to the camp and deliver him to von Luger. Known as "Big X," Bartlett is the principal organizer of escapes and Gestapo agent Kuhn suggests that he be kept under the permanent security confinement, which von Luger, contemptuous of the Nazis, will only make a "note" of. As Kuhn leaves, he warns Bartlett that if he escapes again, he will be shot. Bartlett is put with the rest of the POWs. Locked up with "every escape artist in Germany", Bartlett immediately plans the greatest escape attemptedtunnels for breaking...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=181229 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Pure Enjoyment
Wow, When it comes to Shogun, I don't know what to say.Though certainly not a literary masterpiece, and though i was a bit dissappointed at the ended (ended to abruptly for my liking), Clavell has written a truely enjoyable novel.On par with Tai-Pan (one of his other novels), the adventure and intrigue grabs you from the first few chapters and never lets go.

Though i was alittle nervous about the length of the book, i'm glad i didn't shy away from it and was amazed at how quickly the pages seemed to fly by.The vast locations seem to come alive and draw you in as if you were living in them. By the end of the book i felt as if i intimately knew most of the characters.I smiled when they were happy and shed a tear when one of them i greatly liked died.

All in all, this was an amazing and enjoyable read and i would recommend it to anyone.

SHOGUN IS ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT
IN an nutshell, SHOGUN is by far the best book i have ever read. There isnt one boring moment and it is full of suspense, love, death and to a lesser extent humour- does anyone know of any similar books?

SHOGUN IS ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT
IN an nutshell, SHOGUN is by far the best book i have ever read. There isnt one boring moment and it is full of suspense, love, death and to a lesser extent humour- does anyone know of any similar books?

Life changing
This is the only novel I have read more than once (3 times). It is a life changing book in terms of using the knowledge I learned about "Karma" in my everyday life.It was one of the true "can't put it down" reads of my life.Nothing has ever come close to it in my lifetime of reading. ... Read more