![\""Twice"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/sut-l-books-twice.jpg\")
\u201cTwice\u201d by Mitch Albom (Harper, 2025; 320 pages)<\/p>\nThere\u2019s a saying in journalism circles that warns writers to avoid interviewing their heroes. It usually refers to interviewing athletes, musicians, actors, politicians, and there is some wisdom behind that caution. We put people on pedestals, and then when we meet them, get past the public relations persona, and see what\u2019s real behind the facade, we\u2019re often disappointed. Sometimes even repulsed.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a risk I\u2019ve been taking for 30 years when I host great writers at the Writer\u2019s Symposium By The Sea.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest risks was this past February when I invited Mitch Albom to the symposium.<\/p>\n
I had read his sports coverage for years. It didn\u2019t matter what he was writing about. If he wrote it, I wanted to read it.<\/p>\n
If you want to know what former Aztecs basketball coach Steve Fisher was like before coming to San Diego, read Albom\u2019s book \u201cFab Five\u201d about Fisher\u2019s team in Michigan. If you want to think creatively about what happens after we die, read his \u201cThe Five People You Meet In Heaven.\u201d I used Albom\u2019s book \u201cTuesdays With Morrie\u201d in writing classes.<\/p>\n
Whenever he published a new book I read it immediately, and always felt connected to something deeper. Both his novels and his nonfiction move me. They till the soil in my heart that makes me more vulnerable, if only for the moment I am reading. It sounds sappy, I know, but I feel more loving after I have read something by Mitch Albom. He is one of my writing heroes.<\/p>\n
When he came to our symposium, he gave a writing workshop to our students, let me interview him in front of about 1,000 people, and played the piano \u2014 an arrangement of \u201cSomewhere Over the Rainbow\u201d that he came up with on the spot \u2014 to finish off the evening. Not only was I not disappointed, I was overwhelmed.<\/p>\n
Backstage, after the interview, he said, \u201cThat was really fun. How about I come back in the fall when my new book comes out?\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course the answer was yes. He\u2019ll be with us again on Monday. The novel is called \u201cTwice,\u201d and it deals with a question most of us have asked: What if I got to do something over again? What if I got to change a bad decision, avoid a bad outcome, skip the pain? How would that play out?<\/p>\n
The main character in \u201cTwice\u201d has the ability to have a do-over. But he can\u2019t change the outcome of the second chance. He\u2019s stuck with it. And he says what we know is true: \u201cSome of the biggest things in life happen over the smallest turns in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitch will talk about this new book when he\u2019s here, but here is a preview to that conversation that I did with him via e-mail.<\/p>\n
Q: How long have you been thinking about the topic of a do-over? It seems like it\u2019s a wish everyone has expressed at some point, even from childhood.<\/p>\n
A: I tend to pick themes from my books, and then create a story around them. I\u2019ve known for a while that I wanted to do something on the theme \u201cthe grass is always greener.\u2019\u2019 It\u2019s my experience that this really isn\u2019t true very often.<\/p>\n
Q: You live in a very real world where there are specific outcomes to specific events, whether it\u2019s in your sports coverage or your involvement with the orphanage that your charity operates in Haiti. But your books often have a dimension of magic in them. When you write these novels that involve magic, is it a way for you to step away from reality?<\/p>\n
A: Well, I think magic is a lot about \u201cwhat if?\u201c What if I could be invisible? What if I could transport myself someplace else? So when I bring magic into my books, I\u2019m really giving the readers a chance to explore what if I had this power or that power, what would I do with it? It\u2019s actually a way to explore reality rather than run away from it, but to do so through the lens of a different perspective.<\/p>\n
Q: Twice is both a story about love and a story about consequences. Is there something in your own experience that is at the root of this story?<\/p>\n
A: I want to write about love in particular. I\u2019ve written books about forgiveness, redemption, belief, truth. It felt like it was time to address the topic of love, and how precious and unique it is. That\u2019s the reason that my character Alfie discovers that his ability to do everything in life twice doesn\u2019t work with love. Because love really is a singular thing with somebody.<\/p>\n
Q: How does the release of this book compare to the feeling you have had when other books of yours have come out?<\/p>\n
A: About the same. I always get nervous. I always wonder if the topic I\u2019ve chosen is something that will engage the readers and how much they will embrace the story. I wish after all this time I\u2019d stop worrying about it, but that hasn\u2019t happened.<\/p>\n
Q: What do you want readers to experience when they read this book?<\/p>\n
A: First, I want them to go on a journey with Alfie and enjoy the power that comes with fixing your mistakes and getting second chances at everything. But ultimately, I want them to learn, as Alfie does, that getting two chances at everything doesn\u2019t always mean the second time will be better. And if we kept getting second chances, we really wouldn\u2019t learn anything. The moral of the story, in the end, is that you don\u2019t need a magical power to fix the things that you\u2019ve done. We all get that second chance. It\u2019s called the next minute of your life. And everything you\u2019ve learned to that moment, including all the mistakes, shapes your decisions and your actions going forward.<\/p>\n
Mitch Albom in San Diego again in 2025. Yes \u2014Twice.<\/p>\n
Dean Nelson is the founder and director of the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University, and the founder and host of the annual Writer\u2019s Symposium By The Sea. He has two books coming out in November based on his interviews with writers, Talking To Writers: The Craft of Fiction, and Talking To Writers: The Craft of Nonfiction, published by Bloomsbury.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwice\u201d by Mitch Albom (Harper, 2025; 320 pages)<\/p>\n
\u201cTwice\u201d by Mitch Albom (Harper, 2025; 362 pages)<\/p>\n
Warwick\u2019s and Writer\u2019s Symposium By the Sea present Mitch Albom<\/p>\n
When: 7 p.m. Monday<\/p>\n
Where: Brown Chapel, Point Loma Nazarene University, 3900 Lomaland Drive, San Diego<\/p>\n
Tickets: $51.98-$158.49<\/p>\n