The Same River Twice, Pam Mandel
The Same River Twice, Pam Mandel
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Same River Twice
A Memoir of Dirtbag Backpackers, Bomb Shelters, and Bad Travel

Author: Pam Mandel

Narrator: Khristine Hvam

Unabridged: 7 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/27/2021


Synopsis

Acclaimed travel writer Pam Mandel's thrilling account of a life-defining journey from the California suburbs to Israel to the Himalayan peaks and back.

Given the choice, Pam Mandel would say no and stay home. It was getting her nowhere, so she decided to say yes. Yes to unknown countries, night shifts, language lessons, bad decisions, to anything to make her feel real, visible, alive.

A product of beige California suburbs, Mandel was overlooked and unexceptional. When her father ships her off on a youth group tour of Israel, he inadvertently catapults his seventeen-year-old daughter into a world of angry European backpackers, seize-the-day Israelis, and the fall out of Cold War-era politics. Border violence hadn't been on the birthright tour agenda. But neither had domestic violence, going broke, getting wasted, getting sick, or getting lost.

With no guidance and no particular plan, Mandel says yes to everything and everyone, embarking on an adventure across three continents and thousands of miles, from a cold water London flat to rural Pakistan, from the Nile River Delta to the snowy peaks of Ladakh and finally, back home to California, determined to shape a life that is truly hers.

About Pam Mandel

Pam Mandel launched her career as a travel writer with a blog, Nerd's Eye View. She's since had her stories published by AFAR, Lonely Planet, AAA, Seattle Met, Sunset, and across the web. She's been to all seven continents and is as surprised by that as anyone. She lives in Seattle, Washington, with a rescue dog named Harley and too many ukuleles.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kevin on November 07, 2020

I inhaled this book. It contains so many truths about bad decisions and self blame for staying in bad situations. That's not to say the book is all grim, it's full of gorgeous descriptive passages and meticulous observation. Read it. Buy copies for your friends.......more

Goodreads review by Zandria on January 13, 2022

I don’t know Pam personally, but in the late 2000’s we both wrote for BlogHer.com and I met her at one of the BlogHer conferences I attended. I enjoyed learning about how she began her life as a traveler in her late teens. Pam was adventurous in a way I wish I was at her age (minus the physically ab......more