I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell - Wales

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death is a memoir written by Maggie O'Farrell in which she recalls 17 instances in which she had nearly died throughout her life. Each chapter is named by the part of the body that was compromised in the near-death experience and the year each instance occured is listed next to the chapter's body-part title in the Table of Contents. In Chapter 1: Neck (1990), Maggie was 18 years old living alone for the first time while working a summer job. She goes on a hike alone one day and is followed by a strange man with binoculars who claims to be bird watching. He attempts to strangle her with the binocular strap but she is able to break free with relatively no struggle and he does not pursue her. She tried to report the incident to police but they did not take it seriously, and the same man then killed a 22-year old backpacker from New Zealand the following week while she was backpacking through Europe with her boyfriend. He was sick that day so she went on a hike by herself.