Wanted to drop by and tell this group about a great book I stumbled across called Samurai William. This is a fantastic non-fiction account of the British man who was the inspiration for James Clavell's Shogun.

The true story is at least as fascinating as the invented one in this case. It tells the tale of the early Tokugawa Shogunate, just after 1600, and includes a lot of information about the efforts of various European nations to establish trade with Japan, leading up to and including Japan's all but shutting the doors to foreign influence.

If you like Samurai William you might also like Japanese Inn. One chapter talks a fair bit about William.

Looking back through my reviews, I find that I did not care for Samurai William at all. Shogun, on the other hand, did not bother me so much, perhaps because it's classified as fiction.

Message edited by its author, Sep 2, 2009, 11:14pm.

I'm not a big Clavell fan, and I enjoyed Giles Milton's Samurai William more than Shogun; however, I also appreciated reading Trismegistus's critical review of Samurai William. I enjoyed everything I could find by Oliver Statler, and I believe his research was reliable and his writing pleasantly readable. You might also enjoy his Shimoda Story and Japanese Pilgrimage.