July Reads:

July has past by too fast. So fast, in fact, I ended up reading only one book. One reason was I was concentrating on my poetry workshop: POETIC PASSION; IMAGE, STORY, LINE & LANGUAGE.

The workshop lasted all month and I was pushed to finish the poetry reading that was assigned and the text pages assigned. Since I haven’t finished the text book and the poems I read were picked from several books, I don’t count them for this month.

That left only time for one book: LIFE LIST by Olivia Gentile. This is a story about a 34-year-old housewife, Phoebe Snetsinger, an intelligent, educated woman. But the times we live in shape our lives whether we want them to or not.

Snetsinger, becomes fascinated by birds and bird watching. After a diagnosis of melanoma in 1985, her fascination turns into a lifelong quest. This is a biography about Snetsinger and more. It looks at a different era and what was and wasn’t accepted for women then, but more importantly it looks at the fine line between passion and obsession. At the dark side of one sightedness.


Frankly, there were times I wanted to just put the book down. I wasn’t enjoying it, yet I had to find out how this woman ended up. There was so much to admire about Snetsinger and yet, so much I couldn’t understand. Yet, I do understand that driving desire to do that thing a person is passionate about. I can see how easy crossing the line could be. I think this is the thing that kept pulling me back to the story. How does Phoebe end up?

In Life List, Gentile seems to ask the questions: What is it to live well? Did Phoebe live well? Die well? Or did her obsession swallow her? And the questions are never completely answered. I think about them still and wonder.