Halpern, Sue. Can't Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research. Harmony: Crown. May 2008. c.272p. index. ISBN 978-0-307-40674-3. $24. SCI

Halpern's three-year inquiry into research on memory, aging, and Alzheimer's disease is an investigation of modern brain science rendered in creative nonfiction. Halpern gets to know a prominent neuroscientist, subjects herself to multiple tests (from paper-and-pencil tests to nuclear brain imaging), visits businesses involved in the quixotic race for memory-fixing drugs, and attends the Memory Olympics. She explains in plain English what science has discovered about learning and memory, what is currently agreed to improve memory, and what remains to be seen. No self-help book writer, Halpern has published four well-received books (e.g., Four Wings and a Prayer; Migrations to Solitude) and written for the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and Slate magazine; she is frank and funny about her own fears and memory lapses and gently debunks memory-boosting fads, leaving the reader with few suggestions of what the ordinary person can do. Her book documents (with references) the great strides that have been made and holds out hope for real treatments for Alzheimer's and age-related memory loss. Educational, fabulously well written, and on a hot topic. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries. [Halpern is married to nature writer Bill McKibben—Ed.]—Nancy Fontaine, Dartmouth Coll. Lib., Hanover, NH