I couldn't get through this title. It ended up not being for me, but I hope it finds a hope with other readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This book hit home for me as I work with dementia patients. This book covers memory in an easy to understand to fulfil knowledge and calm fears of losing memory with aging vs dementia.

I really enjoyed the science of this book. And the way the author lays out all the information is very easy to understand! And no, I don’t think I will be forgetting this. And I may want to re-read (and I never re-read) this book at a later date. Just to see if all of my exercising has helped.

Since Alzheimers runs in my family, it is nice to know that a lot of my memory loss is normal at the present time. Only time will tell!

I recommend everyone read this book just to learn and know what to expect at a later time in life!

This was interesting, and I appreciated that she kept it short enough to remain interesting, but repetitive enough to drive the more important points home.

4.5-5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Lisa Genova is best known for her fiction work, "Still Alice," which deals with the experience of living with early onset Alzheimer's disease, and I was intrigued when I heard about her newest book, "Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting." As a neuroscientist and expert in the field of memory, Genova is well-equipped to write about this topic, and her background in fiction writing is evident in the engaging and easy-to-read style of the book.

At its core, "Remember" is a book about understanding the limitations of memory and learning to accept that our memories will never be perfect. Genova delves into the science of how memories are made and retrieved, and explores the impact of factors like emotion, sleep, stress, and context on memory.

Overall, I found "Remember" to be a highly informative and enjoyable read. Its clear and engaging writing style makes it accessible to a wide audience, and the insights it offers into the nature of memory are valuable for anyone looking to better understand this complex aspect of the human experience.

Note: this review was written by me but modified by the openAI chatbot to improve it.

Remember is a nonfiction work by the amazing Lisa Genova, who has touched our hearts and raised awareness with so many beautiful stories spotlighting various neurological conditions.

Remember, as you can probably glean from the title, is all about memory - how it works, how it fails, and what we can do to improve and maintain it. I'm sure many of you know that I work in the field of brain injury, so nearly all of my clients have some degree of memory impairment. As someone who has been doing this work for nearly 15 years, I’ve come up with a lot of ways to explain memory functioning and strategies to make it accessible, yet I still found valuable explanations and examples in this writing that I’ll be able to take away and use in my daily work.

But this book is not just for those of us who work in the field; it really is a fascinating read for all. Neuroscience and brain functioning may not necessarily be a topic that most people think of first when they’re choosing a non-fiction read, but I’ve yet to meet a person who isn’t fascinated to learn about how their brain ticks.

Lisa's writing has an easy conversational tone, without excessive jargon, and without the repetitiveness and redundancy of a lot of nonfiction works of this nature. Every page has a new gem or nugget of interesting information.

It’s the new year. If this genre of nonfiction is not some thing you’ve ever tried before, why not give it a go?

Lisa Genova's new book on memory offers some fascinating insights into how our brain not only forms and stores memories, but also lets us forget the mundane and unimportant and also what we can do to improve our ability to remember. Her lively writing style and way of delivering information simply with anecdotes to illustrate makes it very readable and easy to understand.

Divided into three sections, the book deals firstly with how we make and retrieve memories and the different types of memory, then with why we forget and why poor retrieval of memory (such as forgetting names at a party) can happen to anyone and finally how to improve our memories and do what we can to fend off Alzheimer's with exercise, diet and sleep (unfortunately not with red wine but coffee is beneficial as long as it doesn't affect sleep). Reducing stress, meditation, learning to pay attention and be in the moment and mental stimulation are also discussed as important ways to improve brain function and memory. It was also a relief for my ageing brain to be told that making lists and using Google are both perfectly valid memory aides. This is a book most people would enjoy reading, especially if you're interested in memory and how it work

Genova, a neuroscientist with a Ph.D. from Harvard, is a gifted storyteller. She can breakdown all the medical jargon into easy to read and understand sections. I can't imagine that this would be an easy task for anyone, let alone someone studying the brain and memory. Genova addresses Alzheimer's disease, a very real fear for most of us, especially when one is regularly teased for their forgetfulness. I found Genova's writing hopeful and calming. I have definitely been doing some things wrong, but I learned that there are some techniques that I can utilize to improve my memory.

As with most nonfiction books that I read, this book took me while to get through. I usually can only read nonfiction a little at a time. I still found this book fascinating, however.

Learning about how our brains process memories was so interesting. She gives many different ways to help you remember what you want and need to remember depending on the situation or what it is you need to remember. She also explains what normal memory loss is and why that happens.

I highly recommend this book if it sounds like a topic you would enjoy.

I read Genova’s book Still Alice and knew I wanted to read this one as soon as I saw it. I think we all worry about getting Alzheimer's or dementia in our lifetime, so I wanted to see what the science says about forgetting a person’s name, where I parked, or what I had for dinner last night really means!!

In Remember, Genova uses her own personal experiences while explaining the research to make it read less like a textbook and more like a story. Our emotional state, our sleeping habits and how much stress we are under can all play a part in what we remember or can recollect. I’ve found this to be true in my own life and it was a relief to know that there is actually scientific evidence to support that theory. Genova has a way of explaining a complex matter in layman’s terms and I was able to learn a lot while reading this book.

Are you worried about your brain as you age? Why do you remember what you did on your wedding day but unable to remember what you did yesterday?
Remember by Lisa Genova helps us to learn how our brain works. It also makes us aware that we can forget things without it being a sign of dementia.
I’m a fan of her fiction books but must say that this non fiction book held my interest. The brain is an amazing organ that I find needs exercise as well as the remainder of our body.
Thank you to Lisa Genova and NetGalley for a digital copy of REMEMBER to read and review without compensation.
I highly recommend this book.

Lisa Genova has written brilliant fiction based on captivating neurological diseases. This non-fiction title uses anecdotes and the latest neuroscience research to introduce readers to the science of memory formation and memory loss. As with her fiction writing, Genova has a knack for drawing readers in with just the right balance of science and story. Written with a broad audience in mind, teen readers interested in science and medicine will find Genova's work accessible. Similarly, adult readers will be pleased that the science is neither "watered down" nor excessively abstruse. Overall, this is an excellent r ead for 2-3 sittings that will leave you thinking about your own memory for months afterwards.

I was surprised by how much I loved this non-fiction book by Lisa Genova. I have read all of her fiction books and am a big fan.. this book is very different from her normal fare, but it was easy to read and actually very comforting..I would recommend it to anyone who has a relative with Alzheimer’s or who has lost a relative to the disease and is worried about their own future. I would also recommend this to anyone who is middle aged and concerned about their memory. The author gives great tips on how to best protect our memories.

Highly recommend for everyone!! Grab a highlighter and a notebook/pen bc you’re going to want to take some notes…I’m someone who has a “bad memory”. It’s fascinating to read about ways to hone your memory - she gives strategies! - and why your memory “fails” sometimes. Fascinating doesn’t describe how reading this book is - ! Go get it. So good.

“Remember” was an in-depth, interesting and practical look into how and why we remember or don’t remember certain things or types of things. The author discusses the different types of memory and how they form, as well as why we cannot and do not want to remember everything. She offers a variety of tips for improving memory, many of which are probably familiar to many readers. One of the more interesting chapters was on intentional forgetting; how to help forget some of the negative or unpleasant memories that we can get stuck dwelling on (which makes them harder to forget, as dwelling on a memory helps reinforce it).

I received a copy of the e-book from NetGalley in exchange for a review.

Remember is Lisa Genova’s first nonfiction book, and it attempts to make the science of memory accessible to the lay person. For providing another tool in the arsenal to help someone, I applaud the book. For providing an approachable yet scientifically based text, I applaud the book. For its almost too casual tone, I question the book. Yet, this is one I think I may reread occasionally such that I can remember its lessons.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2021/12/remember.html

Reviewed for NetGalley.

I think I missed my true calling. I should have learned more about the brain and how it works and turned it into a career. I love learning about all the things the brain can do and this was another well explained area of new learning for me.

I have been recommending this to everyone. I started reading it to learn more about my parents and their diminishing memory but found that there were important lessons to learn for myself and for people of all ages.

This is an incredibly important book! Lisa Genova describes perfectly how I have felt at times and friends as well. When we share the vulnerabilities of aging we are detecting, memory is one of them. Clients I work with are very involved with a wide range of work relating to memory, including The Alzheimer’s Association, AARP & non profits which support those with brain damage. So my work has included quite a bit of reading on memory. What I love about Remember is I felt reassured, it’s not written textbook style and provides ideas one can do such as quality of sleep to help tend that part of our brain which stores what often means the most to us. Highly recommend!! Now Suri— where’s my phone?

I’m okay…but am I?

I couldn’t stop raving about this book. I kept obnoxiously reading sentences from this book to my friends--lookie lookie lookie! Like a little kid at show and tell. But when I got to scary stuff (Alzheimer’s), I shut my mouth. It wasn’t such a fun read anymore. Turns out I am doing very bad things: sleeping too little, exercising too little, stressing too much—could I be leading myself to Alzheimer’s?

So it’s funny that I gave this book 5 stars, given that it wasn’t a nice read by the end. Understatement—it freaked me out! I ended up deciding that just because the book scared the bejesus out of me, I shouldn’t dole out fewer points. It’s a great book, whether it made me squirm or not.

Genova is a neuroscientist with a Ph.D. from Harvard, but she’s not stuffy or abstract or distant. She has an amazing ability to simplify hard concepts without talking down to us mortals, and she makes the information so accessible. The tone is conversational, and she gives lots of personal examples, which drew me in.
Going in, I didn’t realize it was a self-help book. I thought it was a book about memory. Well, it’s both. Genova tells us a lot about what’s happening in your brain, but she also gives us tips on how to remember stuff and how to help prevent dementia. I learned so much about how we remember things, about all the sections of the brain that chime in.

Fascinating stuff:

- You have to pay attention if you want your brain to be able to create memories. Think of parking. If you don’t pay attention when you park your car—by noting which level you’re on, e.g.—you could forget where you parked and go crazy trying to find your car later.

-You can train yourself to remember to-do or grocery lists. Genova tells you how to do this. (I tried, and it worked!)

-Forgetting stuff isn’t always bad. Seriously. The author gives great examples. (Oh, she was making me feel like I was so okay!)

-It’s natural that your memory gets worse with age. (Oh, such good news!)

-Sorry, doing crossword puzzles does not help your memory. (Not fair!)

-Every time you tell a story, you edit it. Then that edited version becomes the right one, the real one—until you tell the story again and accidentally edit it more. The story morphs every time you tell it. It’s like the game of telephone. I thought of stories I have told—quite sure I was telling the absolute truth, and then realizing when I told it again, I remembered something differently. Fascinating!

-Marilu Henner from the (old) TV show Taxi has a condition called hyperthymesia, or Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, where she remembers every single thing that happened to her on every single day of her life. You could ask her what she was doing on June 17, 2002, and she’ll be able to tell you. Total recall. The condition is extremely rare; only 60 people in the world are known to have it.

-People with Alzheimer’s are still able to feel love, so don’t think they’re a complete blank. Genova shows so much compassion for people afflicted with the disease, it’s touching.

Scary stuff (as in, “I’m screwed”):

-1 in 3 people over age 75 will get Alzheimer’s. OMG OMG OMG!

-Think you’re cool because you can multi-task? The more things you can juggle the better? Take that smile right off your face: multi-tasking is not good for your brain.

-You must get 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night. Period. This helps with memory and helps prevent Alzheimer’s. Genova spends a LOT of time talking about sleep—stop it already! I’ve always bragged about needing less sleep than others (Genova talks about this stupid bragging), but come to find out, I’m fooling myself. Less than 7 hours of sleep is a very bad thing. (Tell that to my cat who screams and wakes me up too early. Will I be the first person in the world to blame a cat for Alzheimer’s?)

-You’ve gotta exercise! Now who knew exercise was good for memory? Tell me it’s not so! Though I must admit, reading this book DID get me exercising more! (5 stars for me.)

-Don’t stress! Because stress is really bad for your memory. Oh, great, telling me that only stresses me out more!

-Every time you recall a bad memory, it becomes stronger—because reliving any memory reinforces it. So try to think of the good times, not the bad. Ha, easier said than done!

Final thoughts:

I’ve read most of Genova’s fiction and with the exception of one book, I liked it all. Still Alice is one of my favorite books, in fact. Nice to know I like her other books, too—it’s my kind of non-fiction; mainly, easy to understand. I’m a fiction reader through and through, so it’s a big deal for me to like a book of nonfiction.

Some might say this book is on the light side, as many self-help books are. I disagree; I’m in awe of how well Genova can distill complex ideas and make them understandable. And although I read Remember a while ago, I still remember a lot. (In fact, I wish I could forget the parts that traumatized me!) Despite my freakout, I highly recommend this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

This book is so well written. There is so much interesting information that can be applied to every day life. We all have that fear when we forget something - is this a sign of dementia or Alzheimer's? Lisa Genova lays those thoughts to rest as she explains why we forget.