What if the key to healing your deepest wounds lies not just in your past—but in your past lives? In Live, Die, Repeat, psychoanalyst, Buddhist practitioner, and spiritual adventurer Rande Brown shares her astonishing firsthand recall of three previous lifetimes—and how those vivid experiences transformed her understanding of karma, trauma, and emotional healing. With a rare mix of insight, irreverence, and psychological depth, Brown fuses Eastern wisdom with Western therapeutic tools to r...

A powerful and intimate memoir of a real-life geisha, Geisha, A Life reveals the hidden world of Kyoto’s traditional arts, Japanese tea ceremonies, and cultural secrets through the eyes of Japan’s most renowned and pioneering geisha.“No woman in the three-hundred-year history of the karyukai has ever come forward in public to tell her story. We have been constrained by unwritten rules not to do so, by the robes of tradition and by the sanctity ...

'An epic tale and a brutal evocation of a disappearing world' The TimesSummoning up more than twenty years of Japan's most dramatic history, Memoirs of a Geisha uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation.From a small fishing village in 1929, the tale moves to the glamorous and decadent heart of Kyoto in the 1930s, where a young peasant girl is sold as a servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha hou...

On the death of her mother, Lin Daiyu, a beautiful young girl, is taken far away to the capital to live with her mother's aristocratic relatives in the inner courtyards of Rongguo Mansion. educated and resourceful, Daiyu has grown up in relative freedom down south. Now she finds herself in the strictly regulated society of 18th century Beijing where women are bought and traded like cattle. This is a highly competitive female society of first wives, concubines and servants all jockeying for...

Yip Mann, an elderly spice farmer, should have known better than to purchase a fifteen-year-old cherry-girl as his concubine, especially one beautiful enough to be seen as Ch'ien Gum - comparable to a thousand pieces of gold. But surely he deserves such a plaything to give him the last of his sons.To Yip Mann's dismay, the wilful concubine dies bearing him a worthless girl-child. After her death he must make use of the girl as best he can: by binding her feet in the forbidden pract...

"A fascinating novel, similar to Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha . . . A revisionist portrait of a beautiful and strong-willed woman" ( Houston Chronicle ).A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the YearFrom Anchee Min, a master of the historical novel, Empress Orchid sweeps readers into the heart of the Forbidden City to tell the fascinating story ...

Yakuza Moon is the shocking, yet intensely moving memoir of 37-yearold Shoko Tendo, who grew up the daughter of a yakuza boss. Tendo lived her life in luxury until the age of six, when her father was sent to prison, and her family fell into terrible debt. Bullied by classmates who called her "the yakuza girl," and terrorized at home by a father who became a drunken, violent monster after his release from prison, Tendo rebelled. A regular visitor to nightclubs at the age of 12, she...

This book of Geisha culture and history features beautiful antique photographs and a wealth of information.Geisha have the odd distinction of being both legendary and real, and this book helps clarify those differences. Myth by nature is monolithic, transcending history and individuals, whereas the reality is a variety of geisha communities in different areas of Japan, Status hierarchies among communities in the same city, and of course differences among individual...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A Chinese family becomes enmeshed in a dramatic story, uncovers past secrets and tragedies, and learns that love can transcend death in this “engrossing [and] thought-provoking meditation on what it means to be human” (People, Critic’s Choice) from the acclaimed author of Snow Flower and The Secret Fan.“Electrifying . . . a fascinating and often surprising story of women helping women, women hurting wom...

Nearly a century ago, in the Forbidden City, China’s last emperor reigned from his dragon throne. Although he was only a boy, the imperial decrees issued in his name echoed in every corner of the country. Every man had to shave his head and wear a single pigtail to symbolize his submission to the emperor, and every woman was second in importance to the men in her family. Women were obedient to their fathers and brothers and later to the husbands in their arranged marriages. Certainly no wo...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD • Two Chinese sisters, sold as wives to American merchants, must adapt to a strange new country in this “powerful” (The Washington Post) historical novel from the acclaimed author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.“A gifted writer . . . explores the bonds of sisterhood while powerfully evoking the often nightmarish American immigrant experience.”—USA Today

Lily is the daughter of a humble farmer, and to her family she is just another expensive mouth to feed. Then the local matchmaker delivers startling news: if Lily's feet are bound properly, they will be flawless. In nineteenth-century China, where a woman's eligibility is judged by the shape and size of her feet, this is extraordinary good luck. Lily now has the power to make a good marriage and change the fortunes of her family. To prepare for her new life, she must undergo the agonies of...