When people talk about how their brain works, they generally mean memory. It's the part of the brain that we notice most, as conscious users, and whose failings we view as either the betrayal of a trusted friend, or as part of the inevitable decline as we slough our youth in a meandering shamble to the grave.

But memory fails all the time. It fails most of the time, but people trust it so much that they never bother to check it. This has huge implications in things like eyewitness testimony.

This book is a textbook at the undergraduate level. It's written like a textbook, meaning the writing is accessible but very redundant and at times a bit patronizing. This is not a driven deep-thinking book like [b:Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind/Brain|1052850|Neurophilosophy Toward a Unified Science of the Mind/Brain|Patricia S. Churchland|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1387668990s/1052850.jpg|1039334]. It's not a research-level survey of the state of the art like [b:Memory Reconsolidation|17132954|Memory Reconsolidation|Cristina Alberini|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1356138406s/17132954.jpg|23534463]. It is a long, clear, and wide-ranging treatment of the topic of memory. Suitable for laymen, but not a popular-science book.

While the presentation can be a bit off-putting, and the writing occasionally awful (one of the authors seems intent on excusing every one of his personal failings by way of neurology), it is a fantastic book. The coverage is broad, the research is up-to-date, and you definitely leave each chapter knowing a lot more about the ol' grey soup between your ears. ( )