Charles FernyhoughPieces of Light: How the New Science of Memory Illuminates the Stories We Tell About Our Pasts

The first half of this book is the author's personal memories as examples and the second half is other people's personal memories as examples. All I wanted was the facts and information not an entire book of other people's personal memories.

My exploration over the last few years of various articles, books, and documentaries has made me think differently about "eye witness testimony" and the complexity of human memory. (The "invisible gorilla experiment"?) This book also explores many of these topics. It is part memoir and an interesting exploration of the topic of memory....that we don't have little video cameras and "straight eye to brain to gray matter DVD". That memory is continually developing and reworking, shifting, changing......not "set in stone". Recommended read for anyone concerned about exploring the fascinating aspects of human memory.

Love this book...the author, as a scientist and a fiction writer, offers an unique perspective on memory. Really enjoying it.

Fascinating read. I recommended this book to many friends. Written in a way that is both absorbing but also accessible.

Very interesting. Provides real insights into how memory works and often doesn't. I am in the process of writing a memoir, and this book helps me understand how and why some of my past experiences, which seem to me to have been very important and life changing are as far as detail goes complete blanks.

The Book gets outstanding Reviews. I don't see why. Lots of stories;little hard data.Instead,I'd go with the Seven Sins of Memory by Daniel Schacter or Witness for the Defense, Elizabeth Loftus.

This is a pretty fascinating book on the subject of human memory. I have read a ton of books on this subject and I must confess that in this book I finally understood a few esoteric concepts. Definitely recommended.

In great condition! Thank you!

I read The Baby in the Mirror a few years ago and found it fascinating. Before buying Pieces of Light (which I think is a pun on Pieces of Eight, for buried treasure) I'd read Mlodinow's book Subliminal, about current thinking on the way the unconscious mind takes care of most of what we do, and I was afraid this book would be covering the same ground. However, although it refers (sparingly) to recent research and new discoveries about which parts of the brain process what, it wasn't at all like Mlodinow's book, which is jokey and matter-of-fact (and incidentally, also excellent). Fernyhough's book is very personal, deep and moving, and reads much more like a novel than a popular science book.

I was searching for something up-to-date that would explain the science and art of memory; I wanted a book that was comprehensible to an outsider to neuroscience but not one that oversimplified. Fernyhough's book is perfect, so useful that I bought a second copy for my iPad.

Superb book.

Excellent information and EASY TO READ.

An accessible and up-to-date introduction.