Lost in Mongolia: Travels in Hollywood and Other Foreign Lands

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-’90s acceptance of white-trash culture). And while Lost in Mongolia 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.