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Viewpoint

section deals with how we remember. Like Small, Genova
describes different types of memories, such as semantic,
muscle, or episodic, and how various parts of the brain
consolidate, store, and retrieve them. Unlike Small, she uses
fewer technical or scientific descriptions and provides no
drawings of the brain. She does include some of the same
famous neuroscience examples as used by Small, such as
that of Henry Molaison, who lost his ability to form new
memories when his hippocampus was removed (p. 19).
Like Small, she does tell stories—many about her own
experiences. The personal examples of forgetting where she
parked her car or not recalling whether she passed a bridge on
the way home draw in the reader, as do some of the studies
she includes. For example, she asks the reader to select the
correct image of a penny from a group of six illustrations;
less than half of those in the original study could do this.
Another illustration asks the reader to identify the Apple
company logo when presented with nine options; most can’t
tell that none of the nine is correct. In a study that asked
college students to draw the logo, only one of 85 could do so.
In Section 1, Genova offers some good advice related
to creating the various types of memories. She emphasizes
the role of attention, repetition (especially spaced review rather than cramming
for a test), self-testing, practice for muscle memory, and the use of visual
and spatial imagery. She concludes the section by stating that whatever you
remember happening, such as where you were when Princess Diana died or you
had your first kiss, “your memories for what happened…are wrong” (p. 95).
Section 2 of the book begins with a discussion of this wrong remembering.
Genova notes that “memories can decay with the passage of time” and that
“neural connections can literally retract and disappear” (p. 101). She compares
telling embellished memories as being like a wide-eyed preschooler who
believes in Santa; suggestions from others’ retelling about an event can be
added wrongly to our memory of the event, but we still think it is real. Genova
describes different types of forgetting (e.g., the tip of tongue when a name is
not recalled or a prospective memory of what you are to do later…but forget
to do). Like Small, she says “forgetting is quite important; it helps us function
every day in all kinds of ways” (p. 156). Unlike Small, Genova doesn’t really
explain the science behind forgetting. She does include a chapter on normal
aging, noting that many memories do not decrease: e.g., muscle memory enables
one to remember how to ride a bike. Section 2 also offers some suggestions
for reducing forgetting. These include things like making lists, using pillboxes
to track use of medicine, rehearsing tasks, and using technology to search for
lost names, such as that of an actor in a film. Genova posits “so-called brain
games,” such as crossword puzzles, do not help (p. 172). Section 2 does include
a chapter on Alzheimer’s that shows the difference between normal forgetting
and that experienced by a person with dementia. One reviewer (Gozli, 2021)
noted that Sections 1 and 2 are disjointed and lack in-depth explanations about

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