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The Woman Who Can't Forget: The Extraordinary Story of Living with the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science--A Memoir | 
 enlarge | Author: Jill Price
Creator: Bart Davis
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 217541
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 1416561765
Dewey Decimal Number: 153.12092
EAN: 9781416561767
ASIN: 1416561765
Publication Date: May 6, 2008
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Condition: Brand New Hardcover With Dustjacket exactly as pictured; In stock for fast shipping; Satisfaction is Always guaranteed!
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Product Description
Jill Price has the first diagnosed case of a memory condition called "hyperthymestic syndrome" -- the continuous, automatic, autobiographical recall of every day of her life since she was fourteen. Give her any date from that year on, and she can almost instantly tell you what day of the week it was, what she did on that day, and any major world event or cultural happening that took place, as long as she heard about it that day. Her memories are like scenes from home movies, constantly playing in her head, backward and forward, through the years; not only does she make no effort to call her memories to mind, she cannot stop them. The Woman Who Can't Forget is the beautifully written and moving story of Jill's quest to come to terms with her extraordinary memory, living with a condition that no one understood, including her, until the scientific team who studied her finally charted the extraordinary terrain of her abilities. Her fascinating journey speaks volumes about the delicate dance of remembering and forgetting in all of our lives and the many mysteries about how our memories shape us. As we learn of Jill's struggles first to realize how unusual her memory is and then to contend, as she grows up, with the unique challenges of not being able to forget -- remembering both the good times and the bad, the joyous and the devastating, in such vivid and insistent detail -- the way her memory works is contrasted to a wealth of discoveries about the workings of normal human memory and normal human forgetting. Intriguing light is shed on the vital role of what's called "motivated forgetting"; as well as theories about childhood amnesia, the loss of memory for the first two to three years of our lives; the emotional content of memories; and the way in which autobiographical memories are normally crafted into an ever-evolving and empowering life story. Would we want to remember so much more of our lives if we could? Which memories do our minds privilege over others? Do we truly relive the times we remember most vividly, feeling the emotions that coursed through us then? Why do we forget so much, and in what ways do the workings of memory tailor the reality of what's actually happened to us in our lives? In The Woman Who Can't Forget, Jill Price welcomes us into her remarkable life and takes us on a mind-opening voyage into what life would be like if we didn't forget -- a voyage after which no reader will think of the magical role of memory in our lives in the same way again.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Interesting but very poorly written September 3, 2008
Ditto to others who complained about the writing. It might have been a far better book had it been written and edited more skillfully. Repetition, poor sentence structure and inconsistent organization made it hard to wade through. As it reads now, it's pretty boring and I didn't even find myself liking her very much.
 Memories are funny things August 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Woman Who Can't Forget introduces Jill Price, the first person diagnosed with the condition "hyperthymestic Syndrome" the continuous, automatic, autobiographical recall of every day of her life since the age of fourteen. Once you get over the parlor trick aspect of this condition ..."what happened Monday, September 25, 1978....the crash of PSA flight over San Diego" and on and on and on. What fascinated me were her feelings of being held hostage by memories that were as fresh on recall as the day they occurred. When a memory arises, she feels the emotions of the event with the same vividness as the day they occurred. Memories from a child's perspective are remembered as such, not tempered through the lens of adult understanding. It wasn't until she contacted Dr. James McGaugh of the University of California at Irvine, a renowned memory specialist, did she find someone who understood and could explain the condition. She tries to explain to the outside world what she struggles with every day. Her goal is to become the caretaker of her memories, not their hostage. Written with insight and humor Jill recounts a life where she felt imprisoned by her memory, her struggles to understand and cope and the change love brought into her life.
Poorly edited, but engrossing story August 6, 2008
While the author's autobiographical memory is nothing short of remarkable, she comes across as an easily controlled, whiny woman. The book is also filled with grammatical errors which slow down the story, and the portion about her husband makes this reader wonder why she thought such a self-centered man could be considered a catch. He didn't even think enough of her or her family to take his diabetes meds and stick around to enjoy old age.
Of course, what's engrossing about his story is the author's ability to recall even the must mundane of facts, and is worth reading because of that.
I second the other 2-star reviews July 30, 2008
Having listened to all of the unabridged audio version of this book, I second both of the earlier 2-star reviews.
"If we remember everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing." William James (p 181) July 16, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Jill Price is remarkably skilled at perfectly retrieving memories of her past and significant historic events by day and date, but is unable to do justice to that fact through her memoir. Born in NYC in 1965 and raised in an upper-middle class Jewish family, she didn't realize until the age of twelve that her memory was remarkable. At thirty-four, she sought help from renowned memory researcher Dr. James McGaugh. Six years later, he and his colleagues published the results of their extensive testing on "AJ," entitled, A Case of Unusual Autobiographical Remembering (fifteen specific, scientific-minded pages readily available online).
I'd love to spend an hour listening to her talk about her memories (she did well in an NPR interview), but can't say the same about her life story in written form. Ms. Price comes across as a needy, privileged packrat who tends to dwell on the negative, especially her mother's incessant naggings about her weight (an ongoing theme), her father's abandonment of the family, and her mother's health problems. A few things make the book almost palatable: brief descriptions of certain types of memory, references to stories with memory-related themes, and chapter-preceding quotes (probably provided by the co-author). But it's hard to get past distractions like the overuse of certain words and phrases, sometimes on the same page (e.g., "thought-provoking," "hugely relieved," "wrenching," and "stoicism"); the three page time line (a waste of paper); the overinclusion of the minutiae of her everday life (no more interesting than the average person's); the awful, amateurish writing; and the obvious lack of editing. And just when you think it can't get worse, you reach chapter 9 (warning-spoilers), in which you learn that this right-side-of-the-tracks-born, pampered, hoarder, rich girl meets the love of her life, a tattooed, pierced, flannel-wearing Type I Diabetes-afflicted (although in denial about), divorced father of two...in a chat room. The only "thought-provoking" thing about the book that you can't read on the dust jacket is what she considers too "personal" to share with readers, considering her willingness to gush about bedding her beau on their second day together. The Woman Who Can't Forget is a forgettable memoir about an average woman with an incredible memory. Better books on brains: A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas, Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet, and A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar. And by Yasunari Kawabata: The Old Capital.
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