The best Samurai books

Sword-wielding samurai, deadly ninja, and full-on martial arts action, The Way of the Warrior is an epic adventure story of courage, loyalty, and friendship. Inspired by my own martial arts journey, we follow the young Jack Fletcher as he is shipwrecked on the shores of 16th Century Japan where he learns the way of the warrior with the help of a samurai girl called Akiko in order to battle Dragon Eye, the mysterious assassin who murdered his father!

Over 1.5 million copies sold worldwide, the multi-award-winning Young Samurai is deemed one of Puffin's 70 Best Ever Books, alongside Treasure Island and Robin Hood.

Sword-wielding samurai, deadly ninja, and full-on martial arts action, The Way of the Warrior is an epic adventure story of courage, loyalty, and friendship. Inspired by my own martial arts journey, we follow the young Jack Fletcher as he is shipwrecked on the shores of 16th Century Japan where he learns the way of the warrior with the help of a samurai girl called Akiko in order to battle Dragon Eye, the mysterious assassin who murdered his father!

Over 1.5 million copies sold worldwide, the multi-award-winning Young Samurai is deemed one of Puffin's 70 Best Ever Books, alongside Treasure Island and Robin Hood.

At the age of fifty-one, Matsuo Taseko left her home in a farm village where she had spent most of her life to go to Kyoto. It was 1862, and Japan was in the throes of dealing with a new international order. Was she going to further her study of classical poetry with court nobles, or was she going to demonstrate her loyalty to the emperor and expel the Western “barbarians”? Although she played a minor role in the events that ended the age of the samurai, her deeds were nonetheless astonishing for a woman of her day.

She was honored as a patriot even before her death, but her story also speaks to the transformative potential of a woman’s old age. 

Nate, a teenage chess hustler with a dream, takes a chance in a new fantasy video game. As he was taught that reward doesn’t come without a little risk and a lot of hard work. Crafting, artificial intelligence, pop culture, and a fantasy world mix to brew this story. 

Paper Crane Memories is summed up as “lesbian samurai drama.” It’s women who love other women in a fantasy setting inspired by the history and folklore of Old Japan, with beauty and romance and tragedy and violence in equal measure.

The Book of Ninja was penned in 1676 by a ninja known as Fujibayashi Yasutake. Born in the post-civil war era of Japan, Fujibayashi collected and combined information from the ninja clans of Iga and Koka and compiled it into one book. Known as The Bansenhukai – the many rivers which become one - it is widely considered to be the 'bible' of 'ninjutsu', the arts of the ninja. It is considered as one of the three great ninja manuals and it has long since been the main source of information in Japan.

It was not fully published in any language (even Japanese) until 2013 when my team finally finished the colossal task and produced it in English. There are sections on capturing criminals, ninja tools, night raids, making secret codes and signs, and techniques for predicting the weather and using an esoteric Buddhist system of divination.

The Great East Asian War of 1592-1598 was the largest war in the world in the sixteenth century in terms of the number of troops deployed, yet it is scarcely known outside of East Asia. This book presents the first full-length treatment of this seminal conflict from the perspective of Ming China, which was the target of the Japanese warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s designs, even though the war itself was fought entirely in Korea.

While focusing on the significance of the war for the Ming Empire in China, this book also brings in Korean and Japanese perspectives and evaluates the war’s significance for early modern military history as a whole, with particular emphasis upon the implications of the conflict for the so-called “Military Revolution” thesis.

The Book of Ninja was penned in 1676 by a ninja known as Fujibayashi Yasutake. Born in the post-civil war era of Japan, Fujibayashi collected and combined information from the ninja clans of Iga and Koka and compiled it into one book. Known as The Bansenhukai – the many rivers which become one - it is widely considered to be the 'bible' of 'ninjutsu', the arts of the ninja. It is considered as one of the three great ninja manuals and it has long since been the main source of information in Japan.

It was not fully published in any language (even Japanese) until 2013 when my team finally finished the colossal task and produced it in English. There are sections on capturing criminals, ninja tools, night raids, making secret codes and signs, and techniques for predicting the weather and using an esoteric Buddhist system of divination.

My book describes the history behind current Japanese economic institutions, practices, and policies and uses economics to explain their possible rationales and likely effects. The economics is explained without presuming the reader has any prior knowledge of it. Anyone who dives into the book will learn much about Japan and will also—I hope—develop an appreciation of the power of economics to clarify and make logical sense of the world. My coverage begins with economic history from the sixteenth century up through the American occupation and then takes on more current topics—macroeconomy, public finance, international trade and finance,  industrial policy, government spending and taxation, environment, industrial organization, finance, marketing, and labor. In writing the book and revising it over the years, my own interest in Japanese history deepened.  

At the age of fifty-one, Matsuo Taseko left her home in a farm village where she had spent most of her life to go to Kyoto. It was 1862, and Japan was in the throes of dealing with a new international order. Was she going to further her study of classical poetry with court nobles, or was she going to demonstrate her loyalty to the emperor and expel the Western “barbarians”? Although she played a minor role in the events that ended the age of the samurai, her deeds were nonetheless astonishing for a woman of her day.

She was honored as a patriot even before her death, but her story also speaks to the transformative potential of a woman’s old age.