What would drive a woman to miss her mother’s funeral, alienate three out of her four children, play roulette with her health by postponing two surgeries, miss her eldest daughter’s wedding, neglect her husband to the point that he asks for a divorce, continue even after being gang raped, take a trek dangerously beyond her abilities, survive a boatwreck that could easily have been fatal,and travel in countries where there is no rule of law? ….. The answer is birding.

Life List is the biography/ adventure story of a Phi Beta Kappa from Swarthmore, mother of four, who needed something else to inspire her in life. Phoebe spends eighteen years, circling the globe to record sight of nearly 8400 birds that made her life list a winner in the Guinness Book of World Records. Phoebe Snetsinger’s story is told by Olivia Goldsmith in such an interesting, non-judgemental way that by the end I could have sympathy for a person totally obsessed with self-fulfillment of her own personal quest at the expense of family and friends.