Lost in Mongolia: Travels in Hollywood and Other Foreign Lands

By Tad Friend

Find yourself in the midst of a heated battle over a sitcom laugh track. Learn to get away with spectacular crimes. Get lost with the reindeer people in the mountains of Mongolia. In Lost in Mongolia a collection of Tad Friend's most original, witty, and wide-ranging articles and essays from The New Yorker, Esquire, and Outside we are taken on a cultural tour of global proportions. Friend reports from the entertainment mecca of Hollywood on topics that range from the life and death of River Phoenix to the widespread plagiarism of movie ideas, to why celebrity profiles are always dreadful. He critiques the larger American culture with articles such as White Trash Nation , In Praise of Middlebrow, and a brief rumination on what it means when your girlfriend steals and wears your favorite shirt. Readers will also journey to foreign lands and American outposts, as Friend goes on the trail of the Marcos dynasty in the Philippines, is harassed in Morocco, and digs up buried treasure in Sun Valley. Lost in Mongolia is a one-of-a-kind collection from a refreshingly candid and well-traveled journalist.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812991559
• ISBN13: 9780812991550
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: Atrandom
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.91 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

a terrific book

Tad Friend's gift as a journalist comes through on every page. Each piece in this collection has a fresh and original point of view. And Friend is a pleasure to read. His writing is smart, lucid and thoughtful. And he can be exceptionally funny. The travel story, Lost in Mongolia, is a gripping, sad journey. White Trash Nation is as hilarious as it is disturbing. And the chapters on Hollywood have forever altered the way I view television.

Masterpiece

What a great book. Interested in Hollywood? Travel? Backstabbing in the media world? It's all here, and brilliantly rendered. One of the many wondeful things about Tad Friend's writing is the glorious sense of humor that sparkles on every page. This book is full of Friend's wonderful comedic gift; the reader will laugh and learn in equal measure. I've given this book as a gift a number of times and have garnered nothing but raves. Do yourself a favor and buy a copy today.

Premiere Magazine review

"In LOST IN MONGOLIA, [Tad Friend] offers a glimpse under the hood of Hollywood's sleek machine."

Entertainment Weekly's review

Friend's first collection suggests that the "New Yorker" staff writer would make a killer cocktail-party guest: His essays and articles range from the sobering (a moving postmortem on River Phoenix's death) to the sublime (America's early-90's acceptance of white-trash culture). And while "Lost" focuses primarily on popular culture (a subject Friend approaches with a mix of fanboy enthusiasm and grown-up skepticism), it takes unexpected detours through the Philippines, Morocco, and, of course, Mongolia itself--where a routine travel story suddenly becomes a moving tribute to a curmudgeonly travel companion. A-.