{"product_id":"a-very-particular-set-of-robert-mark-kamen-9781668230183","title":"A Very Particular Set of Skills: From Weed and Warlords to Creating the Karate Kid--A Screenwriter's Journey","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe man who wrote \u003ci\u003eTaken\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Karate Kid\u003c\/i\u003e was also an international hash dealer--and that's not even the craziest part of this story. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBefore Robert Mark Kamen became the screenwriter behind some of the most beloved movies of the last forty years, he was living a life that would have been rejected from any studio pitch meeting as too implausible. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA PhD student, martial artist, restless traveler, and world-class rationalizer of bad ideas, Kamen came of age in the anything-goes sixties, when a taste for adventure could become, with alarming speed, a career in contraband. What began with a little weed and LSD in New York turned into a globe-spanning, frequently absurd, often terrifying education in risk: Afghan hashish, false-bottom suitcases, Bombay gangsters, private jets packed with cash, federal prison, Thai drug lords, and one very well-behaved Old English sheepdog. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis is not the memoir of a criminal mastermind. It is the confession of a man who kept walking toward the flame because the flame made him feel alive--and who somehow survived long enough to turn that appetite for danger into a legendary Hollywood career. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWild, funny, and almost impossible to believe, \u003ci\u003eA Very Particular Set of Skills\u003c\/i\u003e is a stranger-than-fiction true story about the thin line between adventure and disaster, reinvention and recklessness, and living to tell the tale.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Robert Mark Kamen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1668230186\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781668230183\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Simon \u0026amp; Schuster\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/16\/2027\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 272\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.06lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.38h x 5.50w x 0.75d","brand":"Robert Mark Kamen","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":49084230598911,"sku":"9781668230183","price":29.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/a-very-particular-set-of-robert-mark-kamen-9781668230183","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}