I read somewhere that Clavell spent three years researching and writing Shōgun, taking great care to do justice to the setting of 1600s Japan. Shōgun, as you can see in the photo below, is much longer than King Rat the audiobook was over 50 hours long. As I was reading this book, I was also listening to an audiobook of the most iconic of this writer’s novels, Shōgun. This book was a slight departure from our book club theme because James Clavell is not an Asian writer, but we were curious about the perspective of a white writer like Clavell who wrote many novels set in Asia. I also read this book with my co-worker, Sean, as a part of our one-on-one book club focused on Asian writers (I’m a very social reader - reading with someone or reading something with a connection to someone is so much more enjoyable to me). What would you say that your answer to the favorite-book question says about you? I actually just ordered the book to re-read it.
My own answer to the question, Love in the Time of Cholera, is accompanied by an asterisk because of how long it has been since I last read the book (several years) and how much I may have changed since then. My hunch is that for most people, the answer to the question, “what is your favorite book?” is not super revealing. It made me wonder about the favorite books of my other friends and family members - Would their choice of favorite book say a lot about them? Would it be a special way to get closer to them or to better understand their tastes? Reading King Rat with these questions in the back of my mind added a layer of engagement that I really enjoyed. I chose to read this book because a friend of mine, Austin, told me that it was his favorite book.
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