Japanese - Historical Fiction Books

[Kenpoist]

I would like some recommendations on a good historical fiction novel that has the Ninja or Samurai (or both) as the main topic.
If you have some non-ficiton books to recommend, that would be appreciated as well.

 

[OnlyAnEgg]

Shogun, by Clavell, was honking sweet!

 

[arnisador]

I liked Shogun. I don't know how accurate it was.

 

[Don Roley]

Shogun is not historically acurate at all. But if you want a good story, it does do well at that.

A lot of places have the book Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa. It is not 100 percent accurate, but it is a heck of a great read about a famous samurai.

 

[Kenpoist]

Thanks for your recommendations. Though I have seen the mini-series for Shogun and Tai-Pan, the book's should be much better.
I am also going to try the Ninja series by Eric Van Lustbader and Sensei by John Donohue ( modern day espionage/martial arts fiction).

 

[OnlyAnEgg]

Shogun is not historically acurate at all. But if you want a good story, it does do well at that.

A lot of places have the book Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa. It is not 100 percent accurate, but it is a heck of a great read about a famous samurai.

I'll look for Musashi. Shogun was a wild read. I thought it was somewhat accurate, generally speaking; but, I'm no historian.

 

[Eldritch Knight]

You could always go with Dave Lowry's books. He's a well-respected guy in the JSA fields with a ton of knowledge. I recommend Autumn Lightning for a start - it's a good read. It's more of an autobiographical account of his training in the koryu arts, but it's interspersed with stories about the old masters that developed his style (Yagyu Shinkage ryu). He also recently wrote a book about enjoying and appreciating sushi that I've been meaning to get.

 

[still learning]

Hello, Musashi....Great book base on a real person and time.....hard to put this book down once you start reading it.

The most famous story in Japan and it tells of the samurai spirit, the life of everyday Japanese people, it has Ninja's....nobles..many hardship stories....

If you can find (one book -900 plus pages) or today it comes in three paper back books-three parts. I have them all- prefer reading the big book................including the videos......Aloha

 

[bushidomartialarts]

musashi was wonderful.

as a side note, the copy i read was given to me by a fellow teacher as a going away present when i moved to japan. he got the copy as a congrats present when he got his black belt, from a woman who had received it new as a gift when she opened her first school. when i finished it, i gave it to a training partner i met over there.

 

[melj7077]

There are an excellent series of books (a trilogy actually) by Dale Furatani about a ronin wandering the Tokugawa Shogunate looking for the daughter of his slain lord and lady. One of the books is called Kill the Shogun and another is Death at the Crossroads. I forget what the third one is. They are called Samurai Mysteries. Very good. They read a lot like a Kurasawa movie.

Another series of books by Richard la Plante wasn't really historical but the character was akarate expert. The first was called Mantis which pits the protaganist against a Mantis sytle kung fu fighter and serial killer. The second was The Leopard which explores iaido. The third was Steroid Blues which was not very good. I don't know if he wrote anymore.

There are good translations of Japanese Tales like the Tale of the Heike and the 47 Ronin. Mishima Yukio was very into martial arts (he commited seppuku in 1970 after exhorting the Japanese SDF to rise up in oposition to the constitution and to serve the emperor) and they sometimes appear in his novels.

Best way to find anything is to get a library card and log onto their system and type in keywords. Its free too!