The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

I read this book for my book group, and waited too long to start it. This sometimes happens because I don't like to have too large a gap between finishing a book and discussing it. My book group meets the last Thursday of the month, so last week I spent every moment reading that I could, and still had half the book left to read on Thursday.

It seemed everything conspired to take away reading time from me on Thursday. Finally at five minutes before I needed to go, I gave up (still had over 100 pages to go), and went to confirm where we were meeting.

Turns out we're not meeting until next week. There was a change, and I had forgotten.

So now I've got the book finished, in plenty of time before our discussion. I can't wait for the discussion. I want to hear what others felt about the book and the writing. I also still can't figure out what the title means. I'm hoping for some enlightenment on that too.

Briefly, the book takes place in 1799 and 1800 on a small island in Nagasaki harbor, Japan. There is an outpost of the Dutch East Indies Company on that island. A clerk for the company comes to the island to help audit the books of the company to help eliminate inside fraud and other cheating going on. We get to know the Dutch employees as well as various Japanese characters.

The writing is excellent. It was nice to read a book with such great writing. I liked the story. I'm not sure I loved the story, but I might like it better after discussion.

Bottom line, I think I'd like to try another book by David Mitchell. That says something.