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A review by kylpon
Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting by Lisa Genova
5.0
This is a fascinating book on memory. Why do we remember certain things yet forget others? Is there a benefit to forgetting? Spoiler, yes there is. Forgetting plays an important part of memory, we do not need to remember every mundane detail of our lives. Things like were you parked yesterday can interfere with remembering where you parked today.
I love how accessible this book is. While it deals with the complicated topic of memory, and does so beautifully, it still uses language that is understandable as well as relatable anecdotes. As it is a shorter book it does not deal with all the variations of memory. I would love more on other memory failures than Alzheimer's, even though this is the big scary one for most of us. There's a combination of learning and some self help style tips in this book and I enjoyed both even though self help is not usually my thing. There are some important reminders for helping our memories. Namely, get enough sleep and exercise. No, seriously, the 7-9 hours of sleep a day really is vital to our well being. Another trick is to remember things in a similar mindset or location that you learnt them. Have caffeine while studying? Have some when taking the test as well. Calm while learning something but anxious while testing makes retrieval of information harder.
The biggest part of this book though is the importance of paying attention. If you aren't paying active attention to something you wont create the memory for it. Also to self test past the point of mastery. Repetition and muscle memory are great for creating those long term automatic memories.
Super interesting is how memory retrieval works and how each time we remember a memory we store a new version of it. Every time you think of a past event you modify it a little and that modified version is the one that is stored back in your memory. This means so much of our detailed favourite shared memories aren't as factual as we believe. Memory is fallible, it gets modified both by us and by things around us and other peoples accounts of events.
I recommend this one to anyone looking for an easy to understand look into memory.
I love how accessible this book is. While it deals with the complicated topic of memory, and does so beautifully, it still uses language that is understandable as well as relatable anecdotes. As it is a shorter book it does not deal with all the variations of memory. I would love more on other memory failures than Alzheimer's, even though this is the big scary one for most of us. There's a combination of learning and some self help style tips in this book and I enjoyed both even though self help is not usually my thing. There are some important reminders for helping our memories. Namely, get enough sleep and exercise. No, seriously, the 7-9 hours of sleep a day really is vital to our well being. Another trick is to remember things in a similar mindset or location that you learnt them. Have caffeine while studying? Have some when taking the test as well. Calm while learning something but anxious while testing makes retrieval of information harder.
The biggest part of this book though is the importance of paying attention. If you aren't paying active attention to something you wont create the memory for it. Also to self test past the point of mastery. Repetition and muscle memory are great for creating those long term automatic memories.
Super interesting is how memory retrieval works and how each time we remember a memory we store a new version of it. Every time you think of a past event you modify it a little and that modified version is the one that is stored back in your memory. This means so much of our detailed favourite shared memories aren't as factual as we believe. Memory is fallible, it gets modified both by us and by things around us and other peoples accounts of events.
I recommend this one to anyone looking for an easy to understand look into memory.