Women of the Pleasure Quarters

By Lesley Downer,

Book cover of Women of the Pleasure Quarters: The Secret History of the Geisha

Book description

Ever since Westerners arrived in Japan, they have been intrigued by Japanese womanhood and, above all, by geisha. This fascination has spawned a wealth of extraordinary fictional creations, from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly to Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha. But as denizens of a world defined by silence and mystery,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Women of the Pleasure Quarters as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

By reading this actual account by a woman who became a geisha herself, you will come to understand how far from reality the fictional book Memoirs of a Geisha, written by a man, really was. This is the best-ever portrait of this world and the women – far from the pining, love-besotted servants – who inhabit it.

From Sheridan's list on Asian women.

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Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

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Interested in geisha, Japan, and Tokyo?

Geisha 10 books
Japan 517 books
Tokyo 92 books