Richard Gere Book:

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When Elvis Meets the Dalai Lama Reviews:
Keeps You Rocking and Rolling
2007-12-27 - 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.

Excellent Non-fiction!
2007-12-26 - 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!

When Elvis Meets the Dalai Lama
2006-08-12 - Despite the interesting title and premise, which hooked me in, this book is a mess of memories that are wildly fantastical and probably falsely recalled. I've actually spoken to some of the parties mentioned in the book, such was my curiosity, and they laugh off the tales as "another one of Murray's bids for attention". Claiming that Elvis was murdered got him nowhere, although in this tome he claims it almost got him killed. We don't wish that fate on the author but it might have been nice if the dark culprits he claimed were chasing him had hidden his typewriter. Apparently, Mr. Silver, a UFO buff who insists that the sky lit up the night he was born, has a bit of messiah complex and a wish to have some kind of light shine on him, if only the reflected light of the fame of others. Underneath the brash, probably mostly made up tales of a misunderstood and mystical genius( Mr. Silver holds himself up as some kind of talent the world has trampled) he belies the one thing the Dalai Lama, at least, holds close and that is Truth. If he were really a follower of Buddha and the spirtual man he claims to be Mr. Silver would know that. There is the one reason so many of the followers of the Dalai Lama have a problem with Mr. Silver's fairy tales and fantastical wanderings highlighting himself. This man is not a writer, he's a braggart. This is not a book,it's a fantasy. A huge disappointment for both rock fans and spirtual seekers.