Pieces of light - Charles Fernyhough

Shortlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize 2013 and the 2013 Best Book of Ideas Prize.Memory is an essential part of who we are. But what are
memories, and how are they created? A new consensus is emerging among
cognitive scientists: rather than possessing a particular memory from
our past, like a snapshot, we construct it anew each time we are called
upon to remember. Remembering is an act of narrative as much as it is
the product of a neurological process. Pieces of Light
illuminates this theory through a collection of human stories, each
illustrating a facet of memory's complex synergy of cognitive and
neurological functions.Drawing on case studies, personal
experience and the latest research, Charles Fernyhough delves into the
memories of the very young and very old, and explores how amnesia and
trauma can affect how we view the past. Exquisitely written and
meticulously researched, Pieces of Light blends science and literature, the ordinary and the extraordinary, to illuminate the way we remember and forget.