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Book Review, © Copyright 2000, Jim Loy
In one of his books, Oliver Sacks (author of Awakenings, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat) mentioned this book by A. R. Luria, a well-known Russian neurologist. While browsing in a used bookstore, I found it and bought it. It is an amazing book about the amazing S (identified as Sherashevsky elsewhere), who was a mnemonist, as a person with a huge memory is apparently called in Russia. Dr. Luria started by testing the capacity of S's memory, and found it limitless, as far as he could tell. He then studied the bizarre nature of S's memory, and the nature of S's thoughts, and how all this affected S's life and personality. What we read about here is an alien mind, filled with pictures, colors, clouds, and tastes, often crowding out any kind of sense or meaning. This is a very very fascinating book, from beginning to end.
To order this book, click Amazon.com (goes directly to this book).