From the Bookshelf of Shut Up & Read…

Memoirs of a Geisha

Arthur Golden

Start date: January 1, 2017

Finish date: January 31, 2017

Discussion: Book of the Month

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What Members Thought

Nov 01, 2007 Marla rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, book-club, audiobook, girl-power, with-reservations, romance, asian, adult, favorites, chick-lit

Great story about a woman who becomes a geisha in Japan. Geishas are entertainers more like celebrities and not to be confused with prostitutes. They could be compared to old fashioned courtesans, trained in music, dance and conversation to entertain men.

The misconception of geishas being prostitutes is from WWII when the American GIs were in Japan after the surrender, Japanese prostitutes in kimonos were shuttled into camps and called themselves geishas.

Geishas were sometimes mistresses of succ ...more

13 likes · Like · see review

Jan 13, 2008 Lauren⁷ 💜 rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, cover-i-love, library-has-a-copy

This is quite possibly one of the most evocative books I've ever read. Arthur truly brings this story to life and makes you see everything, from the designs on the Kimonos to the tatami mats in the teahouses and he makes it all so real. It's hard to believe that these aren't the memoirs of a real geisha. And although the author is male, never once does this read as having been written by a man, I don't know how he managed to so throughly get into the head of a woman, but he did. And the characte ...more

1 like · Like · see review

May 29, 2011 Yusra Asaad rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-stars, favorites

From the mountaintops, the ocean looked like a crumpled blanket in turquoise with stains of dark blue..

I was skeptical before reading this book and kept putting it off for so long, because I didn't know what to expect by reading the memoirs of a prostitute, for that is what I thought a Geisha is!!

I was so mistaken, it starts with a 9 year old girl torn from her family and sister to be raised in a foreign city with complete strangers.. The horrors she faces, the hardships she endures, the practic ...more

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