Mark Salzman – författare

In 1997 Mark Salzman, bestselling author Iron and Silk and Lying Awake, paid a reluctant visit to a writing class at L.A.’s Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for violent teenage offenders, many of them charged with murder. What he found so moved and astonished him that he began to teach there regularly. In voices of indelible emotional presence, the boys write about what led them to crime and about the lives that stretch ahead of them behind bars. We see them coming to terms with their crime-ridden pasts and searching for a reason to believe in their future selves. Insightful, comic, honest and tragic, True Notebooks is an object lesson in the redemptive power of writing.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Salzman captures post-cultural revolution China through his adventures as a young American English teacher in China and his shifu-tudi (master-student) relationship with China''s foremost martial arts teacher.From the Trade Paperback edition.

As a child, Renne showed promise of becoming one of the world''s greatest cellists. Now, years later, his life suddenly is altered by two events: he becomes a juror in a murder trial for the brutal killing of a Buddhist monk, and he takes on as a pupil a Korean boy whose brilliant musicianship reminds him of his own past.From the Trade Paperback edition.

From the author of Iron & Silk comes a charming and frequently uproarious account of an American adolescence in the age of Bruce Lee, Ozzy Osborne, and Kung Fu. As Salzman recalls coming of age with one foot in Connecticut and the other in China (he wanted to become a wandering Zen monk), he tells the story of a teenager trying to attain enlightenment before he''s learned to drive.From the Trade Paperback edition.

As a young cellist, Renne was hailed as potentially the greatest cellist who had ever lived, until, this is, at age 18 when he lost the gift. For the next 15 years he lost himself in teaching music until two things happened - a summons to jury service, and his agreement to teach a cello prodigy.

In a Carmelite monastery on the outskirts of Los Angeles, life has continued virtually unchanged for centuries. Here, Sister John of the Cross lives in the service of God. She is the only nun who experiences visions and is regarded by the others as a spiritual master. But Sister John is also plagued by powerful headaches and when a doctor reveals that they may be dangerous, she faces a devastating choice. Is this grace merely an illness and will a 'cure' mean the end of her illuminations and a soul dry and searching?

Mark Salzman''s Lying Awake is a finely wrought gem that plumbs the depths of one woman''s soul, and in so doing raises salient questions about the power-and price-of faith.Sister John''s cloistered life of peace and prayer has been electrified by ever more frequent visions of God''s radiance, leading her toward a deep religious ecstasy. Her life and writings have become examples of devotion. Yet her visions are accompanied by shattering headaches that compel Sister John to seek medical help. When her doctor tells her an illness may be responsible for her gift, Sister John faces a wrenching choice: to risk her intimate glimpses of the divine in favor of a cure, or to continue her visions with the knowledge that they might be false-and might even cost her her life.From the Trade Paperback edition.

A Simon & Schuster audiobook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every listener.

From the author of Iron & Silk comes a moving memoir of love and family, loss and spiritual yearningAnxiety has always been part of Mark Salzman’s life: He was born into a family as nervous as rabbits, people with extra angst coded into their genes. As a young man he found solace through martial arts, meditation, tai chi, and rigorous writing schedules, but as he approaches midlife, he confronts a year of catastrophe. First, Salzman suffers a crippling case of writer’s block; then a sudden family tragedy throws his life into chaos. Overwhelmed by terrifying panic attacks, the author begins a search for equanimity that ultimately leads to an epiphany from a most unexpected source. The Man in the Empty Boat is a witty and touching account of a skeptic’s spiritual quest, a story of one man’s journey to find peace as a father, a writer, and an individual.

From the author of Iron & Silk comes a moving memoir of love and family, loss and spiritual yearningAnxiety has always been part of Mark Salzman’s life: He was born into a family as nervous as rabbits, people with extra angst coded into their genes. As a young man he found solace through martial arts, meditation, tai chi, and rigorous writing schedules, but as he approaches midlife, he confronts a year of catastrophe. First, Salzman suffers a crippling case of writer’s block; then a sudden family tragedy throws his life into chaos. Overwhelmed by terrifying panic attacks, the author begins a search for equanimity that ultimately leads to an epiphany from a most unexpected source. The Man in the Empty Boat is a witty and touching account of a skeptic’s spiritual quest, a story of one man’s journey to find peace as a father, a writer, and an individual.

Mark Salzman never thought he would be teaching writing at Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for kids in L.A. But the writing changed his mind. Underneath their bravado, his students were terrified young men and they wrote about their fears with remarkable candour and imagination. Many of these pieces are included in the book. Like Salzman, we come to know and care about the boys through them - of their love for their mothers, anger towards their fathers, guilt for the pain they have caused, despair that they may have lost their chances at life. True Notebooks is his wonderful account of these classes: of his students, their writing and his own silent transformation. Impassioned, generous and eye-opening, it is about the nature of writing, the necessity of self-expression and above all about the great magic that can sometimes occur in a classroom.