Japanese Martial Arts Resource About Japanese Martial Arts
History of Sumo Resource About the History of Sumo
BOOKS ABOUT THE GEISHAS
Geisha: A Life by Mineko Iwesaki
Geisha : A Living Tradition by Kyoko Aihara
Geisha by Liza Crihfield Dalby
Geisha: A pillow book for lovers by Anonymous
Geisha : The Life, the Voices, the Art by Jodi Cobb, Jodi, Ian Buruma (Introduction)
Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha Who Bewitched the West by Lesley Downer
The Life of a Geisha by Eleanor Underwood
ittle songs of the Geisha: Traditional Japanese Ko-uta by Liza Dalby
Women of the Pleasure Quarters : The Secret History of the Geisha by Lesley Downer
ADDITIONAL BOOKS
* The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby
* Kimono - Fashioning Culture by Liza Dalby
* The Hagakure (Samurai conduct manual)
* The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (the world's first novel; about Heian court love)
* Wild Swans by Jung Chang (recollections of growing up in Communist China)
* Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
* Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa
* The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon
* The Diaries of Lady Murasaki (though the Tale of Murasaki is based on these texts so may not be of full interest)
* The Japanese Way of Beauty by Michelle Dominique Leigh traditional Japanese beauty tips and recipes for hair washes, facial masks and so on.
* The Sano Ichiro books (Shinju, Bundori, The Way of the Traitor, The Concubine's Tattoo, The Samurai's Wife, Black Lotus, The Dragon King's Palace and The Perfumed Sleeve) by Laura Joh Rowland. Well researched murder mysteries set in the Tokugawa Shogunate of Edo period Japan often feature Oiran, the pleasure quarters and the Shoguns courtesans
* The Book of Tea by Okakura
* The Comfort Women by George
Hicks (not for the faint hearted, sex slavery and prostitution in Sth East Asia during WWII)
