Customer Reviews

Don't Fall Off the Mountain

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.........by a remarkable woman. When reading this book, one tends to find themselves imagining that the contents are based upon a wonderfully moving, humourous, exciting and particularly enlightening feature film starring the immensely talented and deep-thinking Shirley MacLaine. Instead, amazingly......... the book is autobiographical and therefore makes absolutely stunning reading. I have read many books by Shirley MacLaine and within all of them, there is a complete honesty which made me personally, look a little deeper into my own life. It's a gift.

My favorite story in this book is when Shirley visits the tiny country of Bhutan in 1964. She's thrilled and nervous when she's invited to meet Bhutan's prime minister, Llendhup Dorji. She expects an elderly holy man in saffron robes, sitting in a lotus position surrounded by an aura of sternness and spirituality. Suddenly, a handsome 28-year old Mongolian man dressed in tight black mohair pants, a bright red sports jacket and Italian shoes--with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth--swaggers into the room. He shakes her hand and says "Hi there, my name is Lenny!" Yes, Lenny was the acting Prime Minister of Bhutan in 1964 and according to Shirley, he was the hippest, coolest guy in the country. He asked HER about Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, shared a drink with her and drove her around in his European sports car. Yet his conversation became poignant when he told Shirley he once hitchhiked across the United States and lived in Greenwich Village, where people assumed he was a Chinese laundryman. He said: "How do you explain Bhutan to Americans?" But Shirley's comments were even more thought-provoking. "I was thrown off completely. This Bhutanese chief of state had slept in Grand Central Station and people thought he was a Chinese laundryman? I guess it was no more incongruous than an American movie star who wanted to experiment with her inner self in the Himalayas." This is Shirley's first book, originally published in 1970, and it's one of her best. It will expand your horizons and your outlook on life.

........by a remarkable woman. When reading this book, one tends to find themselves imagining that the contents are based upon a wonderfully moving, humourous, exciting and particularly enlightening feature film starring the immensely talented and deep-thinking Shirley MacLaine. Instead, amazingly......... the book is autobiographical and therefore makes absolutely stunning reading. I have read many books by Shirley MacLaine and within all of them, there is a complete honesty which made me personally, look a little deeper into my own life. It's a gift.

This is a wonderful autobiography by a woman who knows how to savor life. It explores her background from the days when she sought to become a professional ballerina, her beginnings in film, her journey into exotic lands that expanded her compassion for her fellow humans, and ultimately led to a spiritual transformation reflected in her later books.

As the author of a spiritually-themed novel entitled "The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fortitude," I am always on the outlook for books that provide food for the soul. This one did it for me and it shall for you as well. You too can discover that you can have an amazing life. I have begun to experience a life beyond my wildest dreams. Shirley's books opened me to that possibility.

Davis Aujourd'hui, author of "The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fortitude"

another great book on the live of shirly maclaine. She certainly has led the way for many.