Lost In Place : Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia

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Summary: lost in place explores universal themes
Review: this new book by mark salzman can be summed up in one word, comforting. being a teenager myself i felt better knowing that someone else also had the precocious far flung idealistic ideas that i possess right now (as does every teenager). a wonderful book.

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Summary: Zen and the art of adolescence at its finest.
Review: This book was so full of humor and true to life situations that it had me from the first page. Salzman captures the ability of the adolescnet mind to lose itself in a world of its own creation. I thought the last 1/4 of the book was a little slow and could of picked up a little. But all in all it was a very good book. I read it in less than a day.

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Summary: You'll laugh, you'll cry, whatever . . .
Review: This is the rare book where you feel plopped down midstream into the progress of a life, and when you are yanked out at the end you feel an overwhelming sense of disappointment because you have almost come to feel as if you are living it yourself. In telling the story of his life from age 13 to 20 or so, Salzman spares none of the gory, embarrassing details of his adolescence, from his fanatical pursuit of Zen-like enlightenment to his growing pot in his mother's house- plants. This is a damn funny book, but in the end you'll be struck by how much it moves you. It's nice for once to read a positive story about a teenager who, while flawed, is basically a decent kid struggling to understand the world around him.

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Summary: THERE IS A BOY WHO'S AGE WAS 13 AND LIKE FIGHTING.
Review: I love this book very much and it is the last book i've read it is really fantastic my hobbies was fighting 2 like the boy.

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Summary: A funny, honest look at the foibles of one guy's adolescence
Review: Here's something different---a writer's memoir where no one is addicted or abused! Salzman leads us in laughter at his eccentric adolescence in Ridgefield, Connecticut where his hilarious over-identification with kung fu heroes eventually shapes his life path. Improbably, he's also a cellist. A smart young man with a fanciful imagination, Salzman never hates his parents. His gloomy, social worker father and optimistic, musician mother remain in his affections as they help him navigate the shoals of the suburbs

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Summary: Lost in Place knows exactly where it's headed.
Review: Mark Salzman remembers something that too many of us forgetas we grow older: that teenage boys are perhaps unexcelled atbeing able to fall into manifold obsessions the rest of the world is only too happy to label "insane." This memoir reads more fluidly and quickly than most "page-turning" novels and certainly reveals far more about human character and human nature. Inspired by Kung Fu, the TV series, young Salzman decides to become a kung fu and Zen master. Join him on his journey to find his own heart, whether it lies with kung fu, the cello, "wild life" or his doomed best friend and kung fu compadre.

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Summary: Nostalgia Lives.
Review: Much more than just a walk down "Memory Lane" for me. This book had me recalling many dormant feeling, and ideas, and discoveries of my youth. If your within (or close to) a certain age-range, then check it out

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Summary: If you can't relate, at least live vicariously!
Review: I especially enjoyed reading about the experimentation in the woods... That's all I will say about it, except that since I never got to experience it myself, I'm glad to have read it from his point of view. His description of his early years with martial arts complement his film, Iron & Silk. That's next on my reading list.

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Summary: Laughed out loud
Review: Memoir of Mark Salzman's adolescent years in Connecticut. Outrageously funny in spots, touching in others, and interesting throughout. The author's description of Sensei O'Keefe and the stories surrounding the Kung Fu Dojo are riotous. Ed, his eternally pessimistic father, adds another element of humor to the story. The novel describes an eccentric teenager's failed attempts to "change myself into something I'm not. The story of my life." He obsessively pursues first Kung Fu to become a fearless warior, then years of cello training to achieve a dream of becoming a concert celloist, and majors in Chinese at Yale because "it was the one subject I had a head start in and could therefore look smarter than I really was." The book is a good reflection back on the eccentricities of adolescence with a profound message offered in the end.

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Summary: This book is an absolute gem.
Review: This book is an absolute gem. How often do you come across a martial arts book that is not just well written but genuinely, heartbreakingly funny? Mr. Salzman has already shown us he can write in his first book, Iron and Silk, the story of his two years spent in China teaching English and practicing wushu with Pan Qing Fu. The book was later made into a critically acclaimed film of the same name. In Lost in Place, the author lets us in on the secrets of his adolescence. Anyone who has ever been seized by the desire to shave his head, dye his pyjamas purple, and abandon the fast food of suburbia for the wandering life of a Zen monk will love this book.
We follow Salzman through the perils of teenage life, goofing off at school and then frantically trying to make up, agonizing about dates, buying his first car, choosing what to study at university, and in general giving his long suffering family a hard time, and all of this while struggling between Eastern and Western worldviews. We meet some strange people he encountered in his attempts to become a Bruce Lee clone, such as the ominous Sensei O'Keefe, the rowdy and foul-mouthed master of the Chinese Boxing Institute, with his dreaded brainwave, "cemetery sparring". Apart from the stories of Salzman's various martial art experiences, some hilarious and some appalling, there are some well drawn scenes of his interaction with his father, who is described as a good natured pessimist, probably not a bad thing to be for someone forced to compete with the glamorous Bruce Lee for his son's affections. There is a lovely scene of his father listening to an outpouring of his son's existential angst. We get a picture of a gentle, mature man with a nice sense of irony. He must be proud now of how his son has turned out. Salzman has written four critically acclaimed novels, one of which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Review Award. He is a great storyteller and this book will not let you down.