Why read Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older?

Book cover of Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older: How Memory Shapes our Past

Book description

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…

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Topics

Memory
Chess

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Why read it?

1 author picked Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Fergus Craik

Author

Despite its title, this engaging book is actually about memory, especially “autobiographical memory” – memories of our own personal experiences.

The chapters describe some classical cases of memory excellence and memory failure, and provide thoughtful discussions of many topics that puzzle readers.

These include the power of smell to evoke past experiences, the astonishing memories of chess and draughts grandmasters, the downside of remembering everything, the highly specific memories of some people with savant syndrome, and indeed why life seems to speed up as we get older – the relationship between memory and time.

From Fergus' list on how your memory works – and why it often doesn't.