The Book of Five Rings

I would place Musashi-san's Book of the Five Rings on par with classical teachers like Sun Tzu, Laozi. His book lacks detail compared to some of the classics, but that is one of its strengths. He spends approximately 1/6th of the short book on the movements and tactics for sword-fighting, which may be of varying value to readers - depending on their interest on the subject.Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" places emphasis on large scale military operations; which lends itself to modern business (in the mind of the reader, and in many modern expositions on a domain-by-domain basis) - supply chains, market saturation, globalization, operational budgeting, etc., Musashi-san's "Way" is likewise applicable. Musashi-san focuses on large scale and small scale (individual) battle, offering useful comparisons and contrasts. For me, the individual focus was extremely insightful and personal. It may suit individuals who have situations of high responsibility or discretion (e.g., negotiations, debate, martial arts, software development), or cases where an individual does not have an abundance of resources or allies - and opportunity is gained through competition.The book is highly quotable, and I found myself reading this short <100 page book over a month's time because every few pages gave me something to think about, research, mull over, and discuss. Almost paradoxically, his vagueness and insistence that the reader practice, research, and train builds toward a thesis - "By learning one thing, one should know 10000 (myriads)."As a retired IT person and CIS college instructor - my lesson on any topic was not to memorize procedures or things easily looked up in technical references; but principles, how information flows, how to identify processes (and problems in them), to detect the presence of patterns, or put simply "How is this problem or system similar or different from others you've encountered. I wish I had known about this book sooner, as he does an excellent job demonstrating this approach to learning.

The media could not be loaded.  Unfortunately I can't give a review on the content as the book I received is incomplete. Yes, every other page is blank. And because I took to long to get to reading it, I can't return it. At least it wasn't very expensive. You get what you pay for I guess.

-This book was made for the intention of improving ones skill in the way of the sword, if you are not familiar with sword fighting techniques you may find trouble understanding.-The writer is a famous warrior, not a scholar... therefore there is a lack of expression and elaboration. Hence, you read 'this can not be expressed in words' so often, you would grasp what he means via practical practice.-The writer gives personal views which sometimes demote other schools in way of the sword, which sometimes can be at fact and sometimes otherwise. Some skills can work out great for some while doesn't work out so fine for others.At the end, the information provided in the book of five rings are very useful in terms of opponent vs opponent of any kind, even in a chess game of mind vs mind, if you got the imagination and analyzing skill to find the connection with other real life satuation where you have to go up against someone physically or emotionally. if it wasn't for those 3 points mentioned above, I would have gave it 5/5 stars, still, I am very glad I bought the book.

Having read other editions of this book I bought 2 copies to give to others and was hugely disappointed. This edition is not complete; where is Musashi's 9 rules for living? What else is missing? Now I'll have to look elsewhere and you should too.

Excellent reading material. Quality book

This is an old favorite of mine but I recently suffered a house fire where I lost all of my books. So far, I have replaced The KJV Bible, Alice in Wonderland, The Book of 5 Rings, The Prince and Beloved. Got many more to, like all the Dr. Seuss books and all the Winnie the Pooh books but these are the books I consider essential. Along with the Oxford English Dictionary, Up From Slavery, The Souls of Black Folks and Of Human Bondage.

the book of five rings is not just a book of strategy for swordsmen but a book on how to control yourself and order your life.

Great book

Hmm! More of a pamphlet than a book at a mere 47 pages, I haven't actually read any of it yet, so will update when I have read it.I can't help but notice the rather striking resemblance between the Samurai on the cover and a very well known bounty hunter character from Star Wars, just check out the helmet, breastplate and vambrace!Pages are a nice, normal texture and the typeface is easy to read.

As I read through the way of Miyamoto sword I could not help but imagine the practices in other aspects of life. The writer was clear, if you read the book or understand it then you have no learned the way. The way becomes part of you and your way. I found it interesting.

This refers to the "Wilder publications LLC" paperback edition (2008). Pretty sad to see such a great book filled with distracting typos. There are annoying parentheses from someone called Slaegr (the translator? the editor?) where he briefly explains customs and meanings. But in the middle of the text? Footnotes would have been less disruptive. The layout is pretty basic in this version, looks like the font has been picked to fill up the book: if you are looking for a compact copy, look elsewhere. If you are looking for a nice edition to keep, look elsewhere.

I bought the original translation (?) decades ago. I bought this one as a present for someone. It is ridiculously large. Unless you like reading books from the other side of the room then don't buy it!

While reading this book I found that there was a lot of attentions on sword fighting. Although I'm a practitioner of single ring combat.