The Art of Memory is a must-read for every boomer and Generation X-er as we age. Bill Beckwith, PhD, has over 40 years of clinical and academic experience focused on memory. He has 85 publications and is 78 years old with Parkinson’s disease. His clinical experience with clients and families, academic experience, and now his own personal experience with the challenges of aging give him insights few people have into the inevitable decrease in memory efficiency that comes with aging. Bill writes for all of us, as if he were talking to us at our kitchen table. He describes what memory is in laymen’s terms and explains the spectrum of decreasing memory efficiency from normal to accelerated.  Most importantly, he addresses the fears we have about losing our memory and offers practical ways to slow down this loss and learn to live with it. In this book, Bill offers steps to take today that will help us preserve memory efficiency for many years to come. I hope you enjoy this masterpiece as much as I did.

This is a must-read! As I read the introduction, I already felt immersed in ­Dr. Beckwith’s journey. What I truly appreciate is his language — he paints such a visual that one can “see” the story. Conversational indeed, Beckwith discusses his personal and professional journey with such courage, joy, and tremendous strength. Our hospice nursing, administrative, and memory care team members would all benefit from the practical information this book has to offer, as would family members of our patients.

One of the greatest challenges when writing a book is to present the science in useful and practical terms while making it easy to understand by practitioners and the public alike. Dr. Beckwith does a masterful job of achieving that goal. He has decades of experience as a well-published scholar of memory. He combines that academic talent with extensive work as a neuropsychologist, performing memory assessments and making practical recommendations to his patients to help improve their functioning. I highly recommend The Art of Memory: Remembering What Not to Forget for all who work with older patients and for all who want to know more about memory in their own lives.

I am excited by the simplified and straightforward organizational plan you settled on to best convey your points in The Art of Memory. Your gentle, helpful voice is as much a part of making your writing valuable to readers as the extensive knowledge and experience you’re able to share. Congratulations on this well-organized and beautifully written book that will be of help to so many readers.