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A review by bjfk
Shōgun by James Clavell
4.0
I will probably add to this over the next few days because it's really such a long book, but for now, here's some statistics and thoughts regarding its length.
I read this book slower than anything else I have on goodreads. It took me 12 more days to read than Streets of Laredo, which was previously my slowest read (not great company because that book was super mid).
Shōgun was really long, and admittedly I didn't have a lot of time to myself while traveling for Thanksgiving, but it was still a really slow experience. I considered Lord of the Rings (475,000 words) to be going slow, and I read that in 17 days (28,000 wd/day). My average is 22,000 wd/day across all books. So I guess with LOTR, it felt slow only because it was 1000 pages and the physical progress didn't appear like it would with a 300-page book. Shōgun was 440,000 words, for a rate of 12,000 wd/day, so I was indeed going very slow. Even if you exclude the days I was in New York, and didn't even consider picking it up, the rate wouldn't go above 15,000 wd/day.
By the end, as much as I was enjoying it, I kept catching myself subconsciously speeding up, missing things, and then having to reread as a result. I think the weight I felt leaving this epic story unfinished for over a month was beginning to take its toll.
It's really interesting how different book shapes, sizes, font sizes, and publication methods all impact the experience. If Shōgun had been split into a trilogy, I probably would have read it faster. The Thrawn Trilogy was 340,000 words, and I finished it in 8 days (42,000 wd/day). But, if Shōgun was published in 3 parts, I think I probably would've kept putting it off because I didn't want a series. I wanted an epic. One huge story. Boy, did I get exactly that...
I read this book slower than anything else I have on goodreads. It took me 12 more days to read than Streets of Laredo, which was previously my slowest read (not great company because that book was super mid).
Shōgun was really long, and admittedly I didn't have a lot of time to myself while traveling for Thanksgiving, but it was still a really slow experience. I considered Lord of the Rings (475,000 words) to be going slow, and I read that in 17 days (28,000 wd/day). My average is 22,000 wd/day across all books. So I guess with LOTR, it felt slow only because it was 1000 pages and the physical progress didn't appear like it would with a 300-page book. Shōgun was 440,000 words, for a rate of 12,000 wd/day, so I was indeed going very slow. Even if you exclude the days I was in New York, and didn't even consider picking it up, the rate wouldn't go above 15,000 wd/day.
By the end, as much as I was enjoying it, I kept catching myself subconsciously speeding up, missing things, and then having to reread as a result. I think the weight I felt leaving this epic story unfinished for over a month was beginning to take its toll.
It's really interesting how different book shapes, sizes, font sizes, and publication methods all impact the experience. If Shōgun had been split into a trilogy, I probably would have read it faster. The Thrawn Trilogy was 340,000 words, and I finished it in 8 days (42,000 wd/day). But, if Shōgun was published in 3 parts, I think I probably would've kept putting it off because I didn't want a series. I wanted an epic. One huge story. Boy, did I get exactly that...