Advance Praise for Life List

“Olivia Gentile is a natural storyteller who has found a subject worthy of her remarkable talent. Life List is a book about birds and nature and also about obsession and choices and risk. Gentile has made an elegant, eloquent debut.”

—Edward Dolnick, author of The Forger’s Spell and The Rescue Artist

“Except for one thing, this book would rate as a great adventure novel and fictional psychological portrait about a woman’s obsession with birdwatching, its effect on her relationships with her husband and her four children, and the horrifying mishaps that she survived on each continent—until the last mishap. But the book isn’t that great novel; instead it’s a great true story: the biography of Phoebe Snetsinger, who set the world record for bird species seen after growing up in an era when American women weren’t supposed to be competitive or have careers. Whether or not you pretend that it’s a novel, you’ll enjoy this powerful, moving story.”

—Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the bestselling Guns, Germs, and Steel, and Collapse

“I am not a woman. I am not a birdwatcher, and I don’t plan to become one. But nevertheless I found Life List to be a charming, heartening, fascinating, and altogether inspiring guide to living life (and facing death) with one’s full attention.”

—Kurt Andersen, host of NPR’s Studio 360 and author of Heyday

“Life List will easily attract bird people and the rest of us with its distinctive call. Gentile has written a graceful and very appealing book.”

—Meg Wolitzer, author of The Ten-Year Nap and Sleepwalking

“Life List is an engaging saga of how a brave and complex woman defied cancer and gender in an epic quest to become the first person to see eight thousand bird species.”

—Sally Conyne and Frank Gill, author of Ornithology and director and retired chief scientist of the National Audubon Society

“Gentile’s tale of a desperate but determined housewife with a passion for birds and adventure is engrossing, sharp, and affecting—a touching portrait and great read.”

—Susan Orlean, author of The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup and The Orchid Thief

Reviews for Life List

"The biography 'Life List' by Olivia Gentile gives a portrait of a complex, brave Midwestern birder: New in Paperback — Donna Marchetti, Cleveland Plain Dealer Read full review

A very interesting OpEd piece, "A lofty idea that's for the birds", by Olivia Gentile, author of Life List, ran in the Los Angeles Times It has already generated a few calls from birding organizations wanting to meet the author. Read OpEd.

Animal News Blog: Birding as Antidepressant? (scroll down to story 3)

“By documenting the tension between the obligation to others and the obligation to oneself, Gentile has written a book as much about the life of women as about a woman’s life.”—Kelly Nuxoll, Christian Science Monitor Read full review.

“Gentile tells Snetsinger's staggering story with clarity and verve. She reflects incisively on the shadow side of Snetsinger's quest – the perverse metamorphosis that turned a liberating passion into a devouring addiction, and perceptively elucidates and celebrates her accomplishments. A remarkable woman of tenacity, courage and transcendence, Snetsinger leaves a profound legacy, which will now be more fully appreciated and treasured thanks to Gentile's enthralling, provocative and inspiring biography.”—Donna Seaman, Chicago Tribune

“Olivia Gentile explores [Snetsinger’s] life gracefully and convincingly…. but better to not reveal the ending of a well-told story that carries you along as if on wings.”—Steve Grant, The Hartford Courant. Read full review

“[A] fascinating portrait of a woman torn between her obligations to her family and her life's passion: birds.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“LIFE LIST: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds [is] a biography that's about much more than a champion birder. It's about a dream deferred -- in a different era, this wistful, poetry-writing mother of four might have become a scientist. It's about the fine line between passion and compulsion.”—Pamela Miller, Star Tribune Read full review.

"Gentile's in-depth research and lovely prose is accompanied by 16 equally lovely watercolor bird drawings by Rebecca Layton."—Jeff Salamon, The Austin American-Statesman

Akron Beacon Journal (feature piece about Olivia and her husband, Andy Borowitz)