The Tao of Bruce Lee: A Martial Arts Memoir »

Davis Miller's writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, Esquire, and Sports Illustrated. His first published story, "My Dinner with Ali," was a finalist for the 1990 National Magazine Award and in 1999 was judged by David Halberstam to be one of the fifty best pieces of sports writing of the twentieth century. His story "The Zen of Muhammad Ali" was nominated for the 1994 Pulitzer Prize and was later included in the 1994 edition of The Best American Sports Writing. Davis Miller has two children and lives near Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

In this companion volume to his critically acclaimed first book, The Tao of Muhammad Ali, Davis Miller turns his attention to a second iconic figure of the twentieth century—and another of Miller's own seminal influences: film star and martial arts legend Bruce Lee.

Just weeks after completing Enter the Dragon, his first vehicle for a worldwide audience, Bruce Lee—the self-proclaimed world's fittest man—died mysteriously at the age of thirty-two. The film has since grossed over $500 million, making it one of the most profitable in the history of cinema, and Lee has acquired almost mythic status.

Lee was a flawed, complex, yet singular talent. He revolutionized the martial arts and forever changed action moviemaking. But what has his legacy truly meant to the fans he left behind? To author Davis Miller, Lee was a profound mentor and a transformative inspiration. As a troubled young man in rural North Carolina, Miller was on a road to nowhere when he first saw Enter the Dragon, an encounter that would lead him on a physical, emotional, and spiritual journey and would change his life.

As in The Tao of Muhammad Ali, Miller brilliantly combines biography—the fullest, most unflinching and revelatory to date—with his own coming-of-age story. The result is a unique and compelling book.

Library Journal

First, it should be understood that this book is less about Bruce Lee than about the author and Lee's influence on his life. During his adolescent years, the diminutive, troubled Miller was probably the only guy on the planet who could have had the hurt put on him by the 98-pound weakling of Charles Atlas ads. Then came Muhammad Ali and Bruce Lee -- a large man who moved with preternatural grace and a small man whose punching power almost matched his blinding speed. Both seemed almost to "do it with mirrors" and, reasoned the young Miller, perhaps so could he, as he devoted his life to kickboxing and in the process discovered that he did, indeed, have a life. In his first book, The Tao of Muhammad Ali, Miller already honored one hero. In this one, after telling his story, Miller spends not quite half the book on Lee's saga, gently debunking many myths. If Lee fanatics stay around this long, it's worth the wait, though they might take exception to some of what Miller has to say.