Friday, August 27, 2010

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Memoirs of a Geisha
by
Arthur Golden

An alluring tour de force: a brilliant debut novel told with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism as the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.

Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love, always elusive, is scorned as illusion.

Sayuri's story begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Through her eyes, we see the decadent heart of Gion--the geisha district of Kyoto--with its marvelous teahouses and theaters, narrow back alleys, ornate temples, and artists' streets. And we witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it. But as World War II erupts and the geisha houses are forced to close, Sayuri, with little money and even less food, must reinvent herself all over again to find a rare kind of freedom on her own terms.

Memoirs of a Geisha is a book of nuances and vivid metaphor, of memorable characters rendered with humor and pathos. And though the story is rich with detail and a vast knowledge of history, it is the transparent, seductive voice of Sayuri that the reader remembers.

A dazzling literary achievement of empathy and grace by an extraordinary new writer.


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The Life of Pi: From Archimedes to Eniac and Beyond

The Life of Pi: From Archimedes to Eniac and Beyond
The Life of Pi: From Archimedes to Eniac and Beyond

The desire to understand , the challenge, and originally the need, to calculate ever more accurate values of , the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, has challenged mathematicians–great and less great—for many many centuries and, especially recently, has provided compelling examples of computational mathematics. Pi, uniquely in mathematics is pervasive in popular culture and the popular imagination

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Around the World in 80 Days - Jules Verne


Around the World
in 80 Days
by
Jules Verne


A journey around the Earth.... in eighty days? Surely such a thing is not possible. Yet this is the bet taken up by Phileas Fogg in Around The World In Eighty Days. Jules Verne was a great admirer of the British Empire. The wealth, the splendour and the engineering, products of the greatest empire in the world fascinated him in his writing.
This novel is primarily about a race. For Fogg and a bet that could double his fortune or leave him penniless and for his servant Paspartout who faces a similar crisis over a gas burner he left on before leaving on the journey. Together the two men travel the many cultures of the British Empire with the police on their tales over a misunderstanding but threatening to stop their endeavor in it's tracks. The presence of the two men in different cultures exposes the English regard to foreigners and the detachment of such men to foreign cultures.

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Monday, August 23, 2010

AREOPAGITICA - John Milton

AREOPAGITICA by John Milton
AREOPAGITICA
by
John Milton

Areopagitica: A Speech of Mr John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parliament of England) Pamphlet by John Milton, published in 1644 to protest an order issued by Parliament the previous year requiring government approval and licensing of all published books. Four earlier pamphlets by the author concerning divorce had met with official disfavor and suppressive measures. The title of the work derives from "Areopagus" ("Hill of Ares"), the name of the site from which the high court of Athens administered its jurisdiction and imposed a general censorship. In a prose style that draws heavily on Greek models, Milton argues that to mandate licensing is to follow the example of the detested Papacy. He defends the free circulation of ideas as essential to moral and intellectual development. Furthermore, he asserts, to attempt to preclude falsehood is to underestimate the power of truth.

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Animal Farm - George Orwell

Animal Farm by George Orwell
Animal Farm
by
George Orwell

Animal Farm is easily the most famous work of political allegory ever written. The animals take over the running of a farm, and everything is wonderful for a while — until the pigs get out of hand. It is a brilliant description of what happens when the revolution goes astray. Allegory is hard to do gracefully, but Orwell manages it superbly: while true appreciation of Animal Farm requires an understanding of the history of the Russian revolution, those without it will still get the point. And Animal Farm can even be appreciated as a story by children with no understanding of the political message at

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