Book of The Day ~ Tales of a Female Nomad: Living Large in the World by Rita Golden Gelman

Book of The Day ~ Tales of a Female Nomad: Living Large in the World by Rita Golden Gelman

Hello members of Travel / Food / Wine Book Reviews and anyone else who stumbles upon this review.

"The paradox of my independent, liberated life is that I could not live it without the love and support of many, many people."

Rita Golden Gelman

I have been exploring the world recently through both literature and travel journal stories by adventurous people. I browsed through Borders, just grabbing anything that looked interesting. It has helped me to feel connected to people and places near and far. Surprisingly, many of the books have also made connections with each other. Several of the female travelers are near my age, which has been an additional connection for me. One book that really touched me was "Tales of a Female Nomad: Living Large in the World" by Rita Golden Gelman.

Gelman in 1985, decided that her life needed the enrichment of travel and as an author of over 70 children's books, she had the wherewithal to do it, but realized that her husband wanted no part of it. She went back to school at UCLA to get a degree in ethnology and when she was finishing the program, she and her husband began to have troubles in their relationship. This spurred Gelman to ask for a two week break to get perspective, which her husband jumped on and one-upped her by asking for two months instead. This separation led to an eventual divorce and Gelman decided that it was the perfect time to shed all of her material possessions and start seeing the world instead of just studying and reading books about people and places.

Each place that Gelman goes to, she becomes part of the life in the town, cooking with the locals, playing and reading with children, experiencing local festivals, rites and celebrations. She stood side by side with women, doing what they do in order to build connections.


What I Liked

I loved reading about the nitty gritty of daily life in so many different places. Gelman crisscrosses the globe (see the book cover), stopping in: Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Israel, Galapagos Islands, Indonesia, Canada, New Zealand, Thailand, even to my home town of Seattle. It really helped me see that we all are so much more alike than we are different. Another fun thing was seeing how differently a single woman travelling alone is treated by men versus women. The women often come to her rescue, keeping the men at a distance.

Another interesting thing is that Rita studied with a guru of sorts in Bali. Although it doesn't seem like he could be the same man named Ketut who helped Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray Love) because I believed he died before Gilbert traveled to Bali (there are only four traditional names in Bali meaning first, second, third and fourth and given in order to children as they are born) but it brought me up short that both women received meditation training from an older man named Ketut in Bali.


What I Didn't Like

I wanted Rita to be sitting in the chair next to me so I could pick her brain and hear even more details about her journeys. One book is just not enough.


Final Recommendation

If you are looking for a good tutorial on how to travel the world so that you get to really know the people and places, "Tales of a Female Nomad: Living Large in the World" by Rita Golden Gelman is the perfect book to read.


If you liked this book review, you might like to read some of my other book reviews which you can find by clicking on this link.

2008 © Susan K Barton