Musashi

A weak five stars.

The bad: The book is too damn long, with several large swathes in which Musashi doesn't appear for ten plus chapters. There are too many characters who serve no purpose, including several major ones, and too many chapters which do the same. Perhaps worse, the book ends in a big epic showdown, which is cool, except that Musashi did lots of much more interesting things later on his life. A missed opportunity.

But, there's lots of good here too. The Musashi chapters are all extremely inspiring for anyone who wants to be really good at anything. When people congratulate him for being an exceptional swordsman, Musashi says “you embarrass me. I'm still an amateur; it's just that there are a lot of people who seem to be worse.” What an attitude.

In all honesty, the best parts of the book are not about being a samurai. It's the stuff where Takuan sets a trap for Musashi, where a little boy torments grandma, where Musashi has his soul polished, or where Musashi takes a few years off to become a farmer. That's the stuff that is the heart of the book, and otherwise it's just a bunch of people doing things, occasionally hitting other people with swords.

As it stands, if you're willing to sludge through some interminable sections to find nuggets of gold here and there, it's a worthwhile book. If I were to read it again (but I won't,) I'd be happy to skip any chapters about Jotaro and Otsu (when they're together), Iori, Akemi, Matahachi, Daizo or Aoki. You could probably manage skipping every second chapter about Kojiro too...