Samurai William

by Giles Milton | History |
ISBN: 0340794674 Global Overview for this book
Registered by futurecat of Christchurch, Canterbury New Zealand on 4/20/2007
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3 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by futurecat from Christchurch, Canterbury New Zealand on Friday, April 20, 2007
From St Christopher's bookshop.

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Journal Entry 2 by futurecat from Christchurch, Canterbury New Zealand on Thursday, May 3, 2007
Like Nathaniel's Nutmeg, one of Milton's previous books, the title is somewhat misleading. William Adams is only one of the many adventurers and merchants whose stories Milton tells, and he is not even the central character for much of the book, but rather an incidental character who drifts in and out of the stories of the other Europeans in the Far East.

There was a lot of overlap with Nathaniel's Nutmeg, too - understandable as both books tell the story of European trade with the Far East, Nathaniel's Nutmeg concentrating on the spice trade, and Samurai William with the more difficult challenge of trade with Japan. These inevitable overlaps unfortunately made the book much less interesting to me, because I already knew so much of it from reading the earlier book, and apart from the stuff about the Japanese court and customs, there wasn't a lot of new material - just more anecdotes illustrating the difficulties of travelling such enormous distances, of living in a totally foreign culture, and of working for a company whose head office was on the other side of the world and could only be communicated with by letters taking months to reach their destination (actually, I'm still a bit confused by this - how come if it took individual ships more than a year to reach Japan, letters from home only took months?).

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Journal Entry 3 by wingkeenredawing from Christchurch, Canterbury New Zealand on Sunday, May 27, 2007
Pick up at a Bookcrossing Group breakfast meeting at Trattorie Cafe, Fendalton, Christchurch. Looking forward to reading and releasing into the wild.

Journal Entry 4 by wingkeenredawing from Christchurch, Canterbury New Zealand on Sunday, May 27, 2007
Pick up at a Bookcrossing Group breakfast meeting at Trattorie Cafe, Fendalton, Christchurch. Looking forward to reading and releasing into the wild.

Journal Entry 5 by wingkeenredawing from Christchurch, Canterbury New Zealand on Saturday, June 30, 2007
Found this book quite hard to get into - the first few chapters seemed just a collection of facts. However quarter of the way thru it became more coherent and the various stories and characters began to interconnect. I did not find this an easy book to read, however the insight into early Japanese civilisation was interesting.

Will release back at Trattorie Cafe, Sunday 1 July at Book Crossing Group breakfast.

Released 16 yrs ago (9/24/2007 UTC) at University of Canterbury, Law School in Christchurch, Canterbury New Zealand

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

I am going to Japanese Film Festival and I will release this book near this area

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