Autumn Lightning

The Education of an American Samurai

By: Dave Lowry

Narrated by: Brian Nishii

Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Dave Lowry juxtaposes his singular experience as an adept student of kenjutsu (the art of swordsmanship) under a Japanese teacher in St. Louis with a riveting account of the samurai tradition in Japan. Intertwining tales of the masters with reflections on his own apprenticeship in the samurai's arts, he reveals in their time-honored methods a way of life with profound relevance to modern times.

The result is a fascinating, singular autobiography. Lowry captures the sense of wonder and mystery that makes martial arts compelling to so many practitioners. Even those who do not practice martial arts will delight in this unusual coming-of-age story.

©1985 Dave Lowry (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Easy listening.

Relaxing, easy listen. Well written, well narrated. interesting mix of personal story and history. Very good.

Fantastic listen

Loved every minute of this journey. Wonderfully told and performed. A real hidden gem. I’ll listen to this over and over.

Great book

This is another great book by Dave Lowry. If you are a martial artist you need to listen to this book.

another masterful read.

I always enjoy books by David Lowry and the reading of Brian Nishi. Lowry's ability to wave Japanese history into his stories while also telling his own are superb. Any one interested in learning deeper meanings of the lives of Bugei will enjoy this book and others.

Fantastic insight

Great story, well written and well read. The information is unique - at least in the western world. Not many had the opportunity to learn what the author has learned, not only the martial art singularity, but also the background story. Of those who have the knowledge, few share it - why this is such a unique source of information.

Inspirational

As a long term practitioner of budo, I found much in this book. The story, the history, and the feeling. Banpen Fugyo! (Be unshaken, no matter what. )

Some good parts

The story of Dave's experiences as a high school novice trainee of marital arts starts out well, describing his painful attempts to get a master swordsman to tutor him. His description of the rigors of the training is very good; you can feel the pain, the sweat, and the strain. But then he veers off for much of the book into telling the stories of the great swordsmen in the history of Japan from centuries ago. Some of this is interesting, but there's too much of it. It would have been good if he'd used it to enhance his own story, but he leaves his own story behind and gets us lost in many Japanese names and characters which I found hard to keep clear who was who. The performer is quite good at pronouncing the Japanese words and names, giving the reading an authentic flavor.

Not as good as his others.

This book was disappointing. I've read other books by Lowry and they're much better. In this one he attempts to tell the story of his beginnings in Japanese sword arts while interspersing that tale with stories of samurai in old Japan. The question is: why? Why does he not just tell his story? The samurai stories are in no way connected with anything in his story; it's not as if each one mirrors an event in his life. The only thing I can think of is that the publisher didn't think the length of his tale was sufficient, so he was instructed to compose these anecdotes to make the book longer.

Unfortunately, I didn't find the meat of this book to be very entertaining or enlightening. Perhaps if I wasn't interrupted by stories that are difficult to understand even in the best of times due to my unfamiliarity with Japanese names and places I would be more engrossed in Mr. Lowry's story. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this book, apart from the wonderful narrator who narrates most of Mr. Lowry's books,