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Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older: How Memory Shapes our Past
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 153.13
EAN: 9780521691994
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0521691990
Label: Cambridge University Press
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: September 18, 2006
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Studio: Cambridge University Press
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Editorial Review:
Is it true, as the novelist Cees Nooteboom once wrote, that memory is like a dog that lies down where it pleases? Where do the long, lazy summers of our childhood go? Why, as we grow older, does time seem to condense, speed up and elude us, while in old age, significant events from our distant past can seem as vivid and real as what happened yesterday? Douwe Draaisma, author of the internationally acclaimed Metaphors of Memory (Cambridge, 2001), explores the nature of autobiographical memory. Applying a unique blend of scholarship, poetic sensibility, and keen observation, he tackles such extraordinary phenomena as deja-vu, near-death experiences, the memory feats of idiot savants, and the effects of extreme trauma on memory recall. Raising almost as many questions as it answers, this fascinating book will not fail to affect you at the same time as it educates and entertains. Douwe Draaisma is Professor of the History of Psychology in the Department of Theory and History of Psychology at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He has published books on time and memory and his articles have appeared in professional journals as diverse as Annals of Science, Psychological Medicine, and Nature. The original Dutch version of Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older has won several scientific and literary awards.
Where do the long, lazy summers of our childhood go? Why is it that as we grow older time seems to condense, speed up, elude us while in old age significant events from our distant past can seem as vivid and real as what happened yesterday? In this enchanting and thoughtful book, Douwe Draaisma, author of the internationally acclaimed "Metaphors of Memory", explores the nature of autobiographical memory and extraordinary phenomena such as deja-vu the memory feats of idiot-savants or the effects of extreme trauma on memory recall.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Lots of really interesting stuff about memory
Draaisma, a professor of psychology in the Netherlands, is a highly regarded scientist who has devoted his professional life to studying memories, but he is also a good and entertaining writer. So when he sets out in each of the essays in this book to highlight one of the many fascinating aspects of memory, you are garanteed to get a good read. The title of the book is just one of the very interesting and thought-provoking subjects he touches upon (and in case you wonder: no, there is no one clear ... Read More
Rating:  - Writing and the arrow of time
This is a truly wonderful book, from which I have received many inputs for my own scholarly endeavours. Here I would just like to point out what is probably a slip of the keyboard, on p. 211 of the English edition. In the formula "'before' to the left of 'after'", occurring twice, in the first occurrence 'left' should presumably be 'right'. Writing from the right to left, as Israelis do, does indeed seem to suggest a different direction of the flow of time.
Rating: - Evaluation of Our Real Memories
Every psychiatrist has some quick tests to check on how your memory is working: reciting digits forward and backward, recalling the presidents sequentially, remembering three objects after three minutes, and so on. Such functions of memory are important, but they are not what we think of as real, personal memory, the subjective recall of what has gone on in our lives, the family reunions, childhood joys and traumas, successive homes, and so on. These stored personal experiences form our "autobiographical ... Read More
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