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In reply to the discussion: Trump says he'll be guest of honor at Japan's 'biggest event' in 'over 200 years' [View all]Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)My dad said that it was a book that I HAD to read, because I wouldn't just read it, but I would actually live it. It was so engrossing in the milieu it describes, that reading it would almost become like living a second life to me.
I thought he was nuts. That book was as big as the Webster's dictionary, and it had long passages of dialogue written in phonetic Japanese in Italic font. The subject matter was historical English-Japanese stuff. Who cares? I couldn't think of anything more boring or horrible.
But I started reading it anyway. I would just give it a couple of chapters, then tell my dad that I was too busy with the summer job to read any more.
But my dad was absolutely right. I was hooked from the end of the first chapter. One of my fondest memories of that summer was reading that book. It sits alongside The Lord of the Rings and Le Morte d'Arthur as one of the greatest epics I've ever read from start to finish.