Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older: How Memory Shapes Our Past
Author(s): Douwe Draaisma
Entertaining and educational, Douwe Draaisma's Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older raises almost as many questions as it answers. Draaisma applies a blend of scholarship, poetic sensibility and keen observation in exploring the nature of autobiographical memory, covering subjects such as deja-vu, near death experiences and the effect of severe trauma on memory recall, as well as human perceptions of time at different stages in life. A highly accessible and personal read, this book will not fail to touch or provoke thought in its readers.
Product Information
'... fascinating.' The Independent '... one finishes the book with a heightened awareness of the complexity and the fickleness of human memory, and a genuine sense of pleasure at having encountered such a subtle, entertaining, and illuminating guide to the territory.' Times Literary Supplement
1. 'Memory is like a dog that lies down where it pleases'; 2. Flashes in the dark: first memories; 3. Smell and memory; 4. Yesterday's record; 5. The inner flashbulb; 6. 'Why do we remember forwards and not backwards?'; 7. The absolute memories of Funes and Sherashevsky; 8. The advantages of a defect: the savant syndrome; 9. The memory of a grandmaster: a conversation with Ton Sijbrands; 10. Trauma and memory: the Demjanjuk case; 11. Richard and Anna Wagner: forty-five years of married life; 12. 'In oval mirrors we drive around': on experiencing a sense of dej... vu; 13. Reminiscences; 14. Why life speeds up as you get older; 15. Forgetting; 16. 'I saw my life flash before me'; 17. From memory - portrait with still life.
General Fields
- :
- : Cambridge University Press
- : Cambridge University Press
- : 29 February 2012
- : 216mm X 138mm X 15mm
- : 01 June 2012
- : books
Special Fields
- : Douwe Draaisma
- : Paperback
- : 1
- : 288
- : 25 b/w illus.
