"(Rebecca Rupp) has a knack for transforming the complex and abstract into the simple and concrete". -- Kirkus
"Makes an exciting story of the functions and malfunctions of memory". -- Publishers Weekly
-- Why can you remember your first date but not what you had for lunch last Tuesday?
-- Why is your sense of smell such a powerful agent of memory?
-- How can you improve your memory for people's names (or poems, telephone numbers, or anything else)?
In How We Remember and Why We Forget, Rebecca Rupp answers these and many other questions while clearly explaining the latest scientific understanding about how and why memory works. From brain chemistry to the questionable reliability of recovered memories to what people such as Marcel Proust, Lewis Carroll, George Carlin, Anna Quindlen, and Lillian Hellman have had to say on the subject, this is both a practical a enlightening treatment of an endlessly intriguing topic.