Memoirs of a Geisha
by Golden, Arthur
- Used
- Paperback
- Condition
- Fair to Good/Not Applicable
- ISBN 10
- 0099771519
- ISBN 13
- 9780099771517
- Seller
-
Buttaba, New South Wales, Australia
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
London, England: Vintage, 1998. Book. Fair to Good. Soft cover. Reprint. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Softcover, reprint, 305gms, 434 pages. Book is in fair to good condition with mild general wear and tear and moderate page discolouration/spotting throughout. Cover shows mild creasing, scuffing and bumping to corners and edges, otherwise no other pre-loved markings..
Synopsis
Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel by Arthur Golden, published in 1997. The novel, told in first-person view, tells the fictional story of a geisha working in Kyoto, Japan, before and after World War II.
Reviews
On Jan 16 2014, a reader said:
Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden, is a warm, happy read. It is the story of a Japanese girl whose father sells her and her sister to strangers as her mother dies. Her older sister is sold into prostitution, and our heroine, Chiyo, only nine years old at the time, is sold to a geisha household in Kyoto, and expected to become a geisha. We discover that, at this time, becoming a geisha requires years of schooling. Chiyo studies various instruments, singing, dancing, and the tea ceremony, so that she can become an entertainer of men in tea houses. Eventually, she is adopted as a “younger sister” by Mameha, a first-rank geisha. All of this occurs before the Great Depression and the Second World War. During that terrible period, everyone in Japan underwent great hardships. The geisha profession was legally abolished. Chiyo, by now known by her geisha name of Sayuri, spent the war years sewing parachutes in a former kimono maker’s home and shop. After the war, she eventually was able to return to her geisha life. The story of her success, largely guided by Mameha, and her own desire to become worthy of a man she has fallen in love with, is very endearing. Somewhat to our surprise, she eventually comes to live in the USA, along with her lover. We suspect, although we are never told outright, that she has an American son. She tells her story verbally over a period of months to a sympathetic writer. This is a hard book to put down; the action is so real, and the writing so lyrical, that we feel we must keep reading until we know the end.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Reading Habit (AU)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- GENFIC657
- Title
- Memoirs of a Geisha
- Author
- Golden, Arthur
- Format/Binding
- Paperback
- Book Condition
- Used - Fair to Good
- Jacket Condition
- Not Applicable
- Edition
- Reprint
- ISBN 10
- 0099771519
- ISBN 13
- 9780099771517
- Publisher
- Vintage
- Place of Publication
- London, England
- Date Published
- 1998
- Size
- 8vo - over 7¾" - 9&f
- Keywords
- General Fiction, Arthur Golden
- Bookseller catalogs
- General Fiction;
Terms of Sale
Reading Habit
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Reading Habit
Biblio member since 2009
Buttaba, New South Wales
About Reading Habit
Dealers in quality secondhand books, operating online and at local markets. We offer recycled book titles at up to 70% off original retail prices. We have over 30,000 books in stock.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Reprint
- Any printing of a book which follows the original edition. By definition, a reprint is not a first edition.
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- Fair
- is a worn book that has complete text pages (including those with maps or plates) but may lack endpapers, half-title, etc....