Across the Nightingale Floor: Tales of the Otori Book One

This is one of my favorite books related to the Samurai genre, up there with the movie Seven Samurai. The plot is well designed, the characters have good depths and personalities, there are wonderful interactions between them, some nail biting action sequences and suspense. It also has strong females which I suspect were not that common when it was written.

But most of all I'm drawn to the idea of a ‘nightingale' floor and had the good fortune to read this before actually experiencing a floor that made unique sounds as people moved about the floor. I'm not sure I would want to live in a house that did alot of groaning but I grew to love the sound of that floor and miss it and the community associated with it.