Kurland, Michael & Lupoff, Richard: The complete idiot’s guide to improving your memory. NY: Alpha books, 1999.
Content: how memory works; memory damage and disorders; nutrition and memory; unreliability of memory (the inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony and the perils of hypnotically induced recollection); mnemonic strategies; test your memory.
Authors' qualifications: The authors are experienced writers rather than memory experts.
Readability: Very readable. Anecdotal and written in an informal, conversational style.
Accuracy: Basically accurate. I would quibble with some of their information as they represent it, but they attempt to cover a great deal of ground in as simplistic a manner as possible ("simplistic" is not intended to be derogatory, the aim of popular non-fiction is to present complex material in as simple a manner as possible).
Currency: The authors claim to have talked to psychologists and surfed the Internet for hours to ensure the up-to-datedness of this book.
Comprehensiveness: The book aims to be comprehensive, but I must admit that I found their choice of topics to be occasionally bewildering. A lot of the material about how humans process information - in particular, the evolution of memory and intelligence - seems irrelevant. There are obvious omissions about how memory works. Having said that, no single book is going to provide a comprehensive account of memory. The style of the approach - the quirky stories and facts - provide a complementary account to a more relevant account. The first half of the book talks about memory; the second half is on mnemonic strategies.
Amount of background knowledge assumed: None.
Usefulness: The attempt to provide an understanding of memory is, as I have suggested, more quirky and complementary than useful, but I like their account of the various mnemonic strategies.
Memorability: Designed to be easy to remember. Lots of boxed nuggets of information; summary of main points at the ends of the chapters, etc.
Interest: Lots of interesting snippets. A fun read.
Balance: The text is positively skewed - that is, the emphasis is on "this is really useful" "this is worth a try", rather than bothering with caveats ("the problem with this is ...", "this might be useful if you ...", etc). But it's a reasonably fair account, not attempting to push any particular barrow.
Availability: Readily available. Amazon prices it at US$15.25.
Length: around 375 pages
Includes an index and a selected (i.e., brief) bibliography.
Comment: I have to say I like this book - mainly because it's so chatty. I wouldn't want anyone to rely on it as their sole source of information about memory, but I think it's a useful adjunct to other books. I would recommend it as a "starting text".
Overall rating (reflects my own opinion of the book’s worth, not its usefulness to you): ***
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