Jonathan K. Foster

This book in the AVSI series covers how memory is studied, how it’s thought to operate, how we access it, ways in which it can mislead us (from the “remembering” of things which never happened, to the impairment of memory due to injury, illness or age) and ways in which it can be improved.
    Unfortunately, it’s poorly written—and by that I mean ivory-tower writing (imagine an academic writing an academic book, academically, to be read only by fellow academics). There’s no attempt at all to meet the reader halfway and the attitude seems to be, “This is how I write. Take it or leave it.” Now compare that with Susan Blackmore’s AVSI on consciousness: excellent writing, crystal-clear language all the way. I can’t believe that memory is more difficult to write about than consciousness, or that less is known about it—or that it’s a boring subject—even though Foster manages to make it seem so.
    Memory is a central and essential part of our lives, as children in the classroom and eye-witnesses in the courtroom, to our very identities, simply knowing who we are. But I got little sense of that here and can already guess that a month or two from now, ironically enough, I won’t remember any of it.… (more)