Editorial Review:

Afflicting nearly half of all persons over the age of 85, Alzheimer's disease kills nearly 100,000 Americas a year as it insidiously robs them of their memory and wreaks havoc on the lives of their loved ones. It was once minimized and misunderstood as forgetfulness in the elderly, but Alzheimer's is now at the forefront of many medical and scientific agendas, for as the world's population ages, the disease will kill millions more and touch the lives of virtually everyone.
The Forgetting is a scrupulously researched, multilayered analysis of Alzheimer's and its social, medical, and spiritual implications. David Shenk presents us with much more than a detailed explanation of its causes and effects and the search for a cure. He movingly captures the disease's impact on its victims and their families, and he looks back through history, explaining how Alzheimer's most likely afflicted such figures as Jonathan Swift, Ralph Waldo Emerson,and William de Kooning. The result is a searing, powerfully engaging account of Alzheimer's disease, offering a grim but sympathetic and ultimately encouraging portrait.

First attracted to his subject by its horrific ability to destroy the human mind and body, journalist David Shenk ultimately finds reasons to accept Alzheimer's disease--and almost forgive it--in The Forgetting. Shenk describes his work as a biography, the life story of a biological outlaw that sends victims "on a slow but certain trajectory toward forgetting and death." But his illuminating portrait of this growing epidemic offers more than a basic chronology. Shenk begins with the disease's christening in 1906, when German physician Alois Alzheimer discovered mysterious tangles and plaques in the brain of a dead woman who in life had suffered severe memory loss and dementia. The tale unfolds to reveal a host of intriguing players: struggling scientists (the clever, the bullheaded, and the pharmaceutically endowed), politicians divided by opposing priorities, exhausted caregivers, and patients whose biological clocks virtually tick backward over an average eight-year period. It includes impossible twists: longer life expectancies and successful treatments for other diseases mean more cases of Alzheimer's will inevitably occur. Shenk's graceful synthesis of personal accounts (from Plato to Reagan) with a century-long search for answers and cures leads him to an impressive conclusion. Perhaps Alzheimer's disease is much like winter: "Once it is gone, we'll face less hardship, but we'll also have lost an important lens on life." --Liane Thomas

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

"The Forgetting" is one to fill your mind with knowledge, hope, and insight.:

The author does an extraordinary job painting the complex details about Alzheimer's into a portrait that can be easily accessible to the general audience. I've learned many fascinating things through this book. After finishing this book, I have migrated from believing that Alzheimer's is a horrible, dreaded disease to one with a sense of appreciation for the inevitable things in life. Shenk quoted in his book, ""Babies are born with no memory. They gather memories as they grow. As they get old they lose... more info

The Classic Text on Alzheimer's:

This is the classic text on Alzheimer's. It's almost a decade old, but reads like it was written yesterday. Shenk tells us how the disease was discovered, how it develops in the brain and how it plays out in the daily lives of patients.
I read this within a month of my father's diagnosis of advanced second stage dementia, and I've never been so comforted by a book. Even now, a few years later, I occasionally take "The Forgetting" down from the shelf and hold it. I read a few pages. I feel secure... more info

Expanding the understanding of Alzheimer Disease:

THE FORGETTING is an exceptional book on the subject of Alzheimer's. One follows the historical biography of this disease through lucid and engaging writing, with much anecdotal evidence of its' effects upon prominent persons, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Willem de Kooning. The author offers ways of understanding the disease that include perceptions of some actual sufferers who, themselves, offer their insights. Having read several books on this topic, this is the one I pass along to others as a valuable... more info

Alzheimer's:Portrait of an Epidemic:

I purchased this book after seeing it described as "remarkable" by Oliver Sacks, in his own book "Musicophilia". I gave the book to a friend, whose husband is sadly, suffering the early signs of probable Alzheimer's disease, but as a retired surgeon, with only a rudimentary knowledge of the medical aspects of the condition myself, I was also interested to read it first. For some reason, I found the introductory passages of the book a little dense, but thereafter, it was thoroughly engaging and enlightening.... more info

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