When Elvis Meets the Dalai Lama

After years of chemistry and rocket science reading, I came out of my shell in need of some culture, laughs, endearment and enlightment. I stumbled upon "When Elvis Meets the Dalai Lama", which provided me with a little of each, and plenty of entertainement. Murray Silver manages to explain his grudge against the movie "Great Balls of Fire" I enjoyed so much (think of it, when someone turns your work upside down at will, without your least input, it must be frustrating!), and shows how the complexity of the movie industry attempts to weed out the outsider. Chapter 3, about how he met His Holines the Dalai Lama, kept me laughing out loud! Chapter 5, Strange Angels and Chapter 6, Crazy, take you into a Memphis that hardly exists anymore, and his respect and tenderness for the old bluesman, Booker T., is contagious. In Chapter 7 I felt like I got a two-for-one deal; it feels like a book within a book about the craziness involving the death of Elvis Presley --quite a handful. I was not around at the time, so this new (for me) point of view was fascinating and warrants a consideration. In chapters 10 and 11 Silver accomplishes a rare feat: make wrestling interesting! He does this by focusing on the human element, and you can't help but feel compassion for the messes in which the protagonists get themselves into. Speaking of mess-- by this point in the book, you see a pattern: Murray Silver is himself getting into a whole lot of trouble -- just by trying to do his job: write! I also got a thrill from Little White Lies, chapter 14, a civil rights story about his father`s case to defend a poor black man in the 60's -- which in the end leads to Murray Silver being the speech writer at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center! The book is always teaching you, from story to story, how strongly things are connected in life, and the importantce of doing your task to the best of your ability. But the best compliment I can think of for this book is that Mr. Silver was so didatic in distilling the very complex Buddhist philosophy that the next book I am reading is "The Art of Happiness" by HH the Dalai Lama. I highly recommend this book.

If you read one book in 2008, make it this one! In compelling, interesting factual basis, this one makes excellent reading. Chapter 7, on Elvis Presley, as well as Chapter 2, How the Best Book Ever Written, are delightful...Chapter 14, Little White Lies is vivid, gut wrenching!