title: Pieces of Light: How the New Science of Memory Illuminates the Stories We Tell About Our Pasts
author:  Charles Fernyhough 
description: &#8220;A multidisciplinary approach to explaining memory. . . . Will be intriguing for readers interested in the borderlands where memoir, fiction and science overlap.&#8221; (<i>Kirkus Reviews</i>)<br /><br />&#8220;His examination [is] welcoming and accessible to lay readers. His analysis is wide-ranging . . . He also covers a wide swath of literary and historical ground . . . A refreshingly social take on an intensely personal experience.&#8221; (<i>Publishers Weekly</i>)<br /><br />&#8220;A thoughtful study of how we make sense of ourselves.&#8221; (<i>Nature</i>)<br /><br />&#8220;Fernyhough is a gifted writer who can turn any experience into lively prose. . . . The stories in <i>Pieces of Light</i> . . . will entertain anyone who reads them.&#8221; (<i>Financial Times</i>)<br /><br />&#8220;<i>Pieces of Light</i> is utterly fascinating and superbly written. I learned more about memory from this book than any other. There are few science books around of this class. (<i>The Guardian</i>)<br /><br />&#8220;Outstanding. . . . Fernyhough&#8217;s skills as a writer are evident both in the beautiful prose and in the way he uses literature to illustrate his argument . . . He draws on both science and art to marvelous effect.&#8221; (<i>Observer</i> (UK))<br /><br />&#8220;A beautifully written, absorbing read -- a fascinating journey through the latest science of memory.&#8221; (Elizabeth Loftus, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Irvine)<br /><br />&#8220;Both playful and profound, a wonderfully memorable read.&#8221; (Douwe Draaisma, author of <i>Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older</i>)<br /><br />&#8220;Fernyhough weaves literature and science to expose our rich, beautiful relationship with our past and future selves.&#8221; (Dr. David Eagleman, Neuroscientist and author of <i>Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain</i>)<br /><br />&#8220;Combining the engaging style of a novelist with the rigour of a scientist. . . . <i>Pieces of Light</i> will both linger in your memory and change the way you think about it.&#8221; (Daniel L. Schacter, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of <i>The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers</i>)
zlib_text: BUT HE DID NOT SPEND AIL THAT TIME DAYDREAMING-TO HIS own very great surprise.
  He found himself caught up in other mental exercises. He had expected no such
  thing to happen. If anything he was looking forward to a couple of days
  exploring his more pleasant memories. There was an active pleasure in calling
  up happy scenes out of his past, and he had been amazed at the detail with
  which his unconscious recalled them-far beyond what he was used to. Where his
  ordinary memory would have given him the time, the place, the action and the
  emotion, this new memory gave him far more. He could study a particular moment
  he had once lived and simply by looking more closely at it, see the pattern of
  the fabric on the upholstering of the furniture, the small items scattered
  about the room, the quality of sunlight coming in the windows. Bit by bit, he
  had become fascinated, not so much with remembering, as with the capabilities
  of his memory; and, beyond this, the capabilities and liabilities of his n