Pieces of Light : How the New Science of Memory Illuminates the Stories We Tell About Our Pasts
Author(s): Charles Fernyhough
Short-listed for the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, the Best Book of Ideas Prize, and the Society of Biology Book Awards • Book of the Year: Sunday Times, Sunday Express, and New Scientist
“In its stunning blend of the literary with the scientific, Pieces of Light illuminates ordinary and extraordinary stories to remind us that who we are now has everything to do with who we were once, and that identity itself is intricately rooted the transporting moments of remembrance. We are what we remember.” — André Aciman, author of Out of Egypt and Harvard Square
A new consensus is emerging among cognitive scientists: rather than possessing fixed, unchanging memories, we create new recollections each time we are called upon to remember. As psychologist Charles Fernyhough explains, remembering is an act of narrative imagination as much as it is the product of a neurological process. In Pieces of Light, he illuminates this compelling scientific breakthrough in a series of personal stories, each illustrating memory's complex synergy of cognitive and neurological functions.
Combining science and literature, the ordinary and the extraordinary, this fascinating tour through the new science of autobiographical memory helps us better understand the ways we remember—and the ways we forget.
Review(s):
“In its stunning blend of the literary with the scientific, Pieces of Light illuminates ordinary and extraordinary stories to remind us that who we are now has everything to do with who we were once, and that identity itself is intricately rooted the transporting moments of remembrance. We are what we remember.”
“A multidisciplinary approach to explaining memory. . . . Will be intriguing for readers interested in the borderlands where memoir, fiction and science overlap.”
“His examination [is] welcoming and accessible to lay readers. His analysis is wide-ranging . . . He also covers a wide swath of literary and historical ground . . . A refreshingly social take on an intensely personal experience.”
“[A] thoughtful exploration of recent memory research. . . . Fernyhough, who writes fiction as well as psychological studies, is a deft guide to discoveries that have led memory researchers to stress the centrality of storytelling. Pieces of Light can be seen as a series of the author’s stories that display the molecular, neural, and cognitive elements of memory and its emotional, personal, social, and cultural components.”
“A thoughtful study of how we make sense of ourselves.”
“An immense pleasure, as Fernyhough casts the emerging science of memory through the lens of his own recollections. . . . In the hands of a lesser writer, such reliance on personal experience could rapidly descend into self-indulgence and cliché, but Fernyhough -- a psychologist and published novelist -- remains restrained and lyrical throughout.”
“Fernyhough is a gifted writer who can turn any experience into lively prose. . . . The stories in Pieces of Light . . . will entertain anyone who reads them.”
“Pieces of Light is utterly fascinating and superbly written. I learned more about memory from this book than any other. There are few science books around of this class.
“Outstanding. . . . Fernyhough’s skills as a writer are evident both in the beautiful prose and in the way he uses literature to illustrate his argument . . . He draws on both science and art to marvelous effect.”
“A beautifully written, absorbing read—a fascinating journey through the latest science of memory.”
ISBN: 9780062237903