Cant Remember What I Forgot, Sue Halpern
Cant Remember What I Forgot, Sue Halpern
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Can't Remember What I Forgot
The Good News from the Frontlines of Memory Research

Author: Sue Halpern

Narrator: Cassandra Campbell

Unabridged: 8 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/30/2008


Synopsis

When Sue Halpern decided to emulate the first modern scientist of memory, Hermann Ebbinghaus, who experimented on himself, she had no idea that after a day of radioactive testing, her brain would become so "hot" that leaving through the front door of the lab would trigger the alarm. This was not the first time that Halpern had her head examined while researching Can't Remember What I Forgot, nor would it be the last.

Halpern spent years in the company of the neuroscientists, pharmacologists, psychologists, nutritionists, and inventors who are hunting for the genes and molecules, the drugs and foods, the machines, the prosthetics, the behaviors, and the therapies that will stave off Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia and keep our minds—and memories—intact. Like many of us who have had a relative or friend succumb to memory loss, who are getting older, who are hearing statistics about our own chances of falling victim to dementia, or who worry that each lapse of memory portends disease, Halpern wanted to find out what the experts really knew; what the bench scientists were working on; how close science is to a cure, to treatment, and to accurate early diagnosis; and, of course, whether the crossword puzzles, sudokus, and ballroom dancing we've been told to take up can really keep us lucid or if they're just something to do before the inevitable overtakes us.

Beautifully written, sharply observed, and deeply informed, Can't Remember What I Forgot is a book full of vital information—and a solid dose of hope.

About Sue Halpern

Sue Halpern received her doctorate from Oxford University in 1985 and first began teaching at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is the author of Four Wings and a Prayer, Migrations to Solitude, and two books of fiction. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Conde Nast Traveler, and the New York Review of Books, among other publications. She lives in Ripton, Vermont, with her husband, writer Bill McKibben, and their daughter, Sophie, and is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kirsti on March 13, 2012

If I could boil down this entire book into one recommendation, it would be: Exercise. Moderate exercise (cardio rather than stretching and toning) improves memory, triggers production of new brain cells, and reoxygenates the blood. It doesn't cure Alzheimer's, depression, Parkinson's, or dementia, b......more

Goodreads review by David on August 09, 2008

There's an excellent magazine series or perhaps a chapter in an edited book on neuroscience for the general public trying to get out from this poorly edited, overlong book. It weighs in at 228 pages, and if you subtracted all the: (a) uninteresting, obvious analyses (memorizing a long string of numbe......more

Goodreads review by Barbara on February 07, 2009

I can't really remember what this book was about . . . Some days I feel like I'm lucky to remember my own name. Actually this is a very good book on the current research in memory. Sue Halpern decided to find out about this field by looking her own memory, and to do this, she interviewed many of the......more

Goodreads review by William on July 21, 2020

This book is mediocre. I mean that in the literal sense. I suppose some might see that as having a negative connotation. Perhaps it would be better to call it average. First, a little backstory; my grandmother had Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease and died before I was born. This is something that worr......more

Goodreads review by Shawn on March 17, 2022

The subtitle on this book is all wrong. Maybe “the struggle for a cure to our fading memory“ would have been more apt. I really enjoyed the book for what it was, not what the subtitle promised. This is a story about the many too-good-to-be-true substances, programs, and studies that over promise and......more