That was actually required reading for an organized crime class I took years ago, I had seen the movie several times before reading the book but I did enjoy it.
Shibumi By: Trevanian Publisher's Summary Nicholai Hel, born in the ravages of World War I China to an aristocratic Russian mother and a mysterious German father, raised in the spiritual gardens of a Japanese Go Master, survives the destruction of Hiroshima to emerge as the world's most artful lover and its most accomplished and highly paid assassin. Genius, mystic, master of language and culture, Hel's secret is his determination to attain a rare kind of personal excellence, a state of effortless perfection: shibumi. Now living in an isolated mountain fortress with his magnificent Eurasian mistress, Hel faces his most sinister enemy, a super-monolith of espionage and monopoly. The battle lines are drawn: ruthless power and corruption on one side and on the other, shibumi.
She's a bit of a quack, but I like to devour pretty much anything related to health and fitness whether I agree with it or not.
How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius I like reading stuff from the stoics.
