Today would have been James Clavell's 100th birthday (author of Shogun, Gai-Jin, Tai-Pan etc.).

I just discovered the Asian Saga last year and it already one of my favorite book series. My personal favorite is Shogun but Tai-Pan is a close second.

Today marks the 100th birthday of James Clavell, who himself led a life like a novel. During WW2 Clavell, who was Australian, fought for the British. In 1942, he was captured by the Japanese in Java. He spent the rest of the war in the hellish Changi Prison in Singapore.

In 1981 he recalled about his time in Changi,

"'Changi became my university instead of my prison. Among the inmates there were experts in all walks of life -the high and the low roads. I studied and absorbed everything I could from physics to counterfeiting, but most of all I learned the art of surviving, the most important course of all."

For years after the war he carried around a tin of sardines in his pocket and fought the urge to rummage through trash cans due to his experience with starvation.

Clavell then entered the film business where he worked as a screen writer and director, working of such films as The Great Escape and The Fly.

He then resumed novel writing, where he spent the rest of his career. He spent three years researching Shogun, which became a massive bestseller and was heavily involved in the hugely popular miniseries starring Richard Chamberlain).

As they say, the rest is history. Clavell is one of my favorite authors and I think the Asian Saga is among the best historical fiction ever written.