My Nine Lives

This memoir celebrates the extraordinary journey of Ben Lin, whose multi-faceted life has few equals.

A senior analytical chemist at Merck, he graced Barbara Walters' TV show with his Chinese cooking. When the head chef of his acclaimed restaurant suffered a stroke, he gamely took over-after a two-week on-the-job training-without compromising the standard. As manufacturer of his widely distributed wonton soup, he upgraded its manual production to a historic, automated process that could churn out wontons at Lightning speed.

For the play The Imposter, "V.C. Zhang (was) played superbly by Ben Lin, a mature actor with dignity and power," observed a reviewer, and for the short film Touch, he was NBC UNIVERSAL Short Film Festival's nominee as the best actor. On Onion News' video he played the title role of China's Andy Rooney. Among his voice-over projects, Birdnesters of Thailand was an Oscar documentary nominee. Aspired initially to be a concert pianist but thwarted by an injured finger, he recovered and went on to solo with an orchestra winning accolade as an "excellent pianist."