Book Report

The Woman Who Can’t Forget by Jill Price – I listened to this memoir on audio. It is the true story of a woman who has a remarkable memory: she remembers basically everything about her life from the time she entered her teens. If you give Jill Price a date, she can tell you the day of the week and can tell you everything she experienced that day in addition to any major news events that occurred on that date. Additionally, when she relives these memories, she experiences all the emotions that went along with them. So it’s been both a blessing and a curse, and the author shares some of the struggles she faced. When in her thirties, she decided to track down scientists who studied memory, and they have been studying her unique skills and her brain. Price’s life itself would’ve been fairly ordinary if not for this, but I enjoyed reading about it. She hoards too, but that wasn’t the focus of the book. Grade: B

Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write About Real Sex, edited by Erica Jong – Yeah, I read a lot about sex, what of it? I do feel a tad bit guilty because the first comment I have on this anthology is the same comment I made on another anthology on the same topic: I wanted to hear a bit more about the actual sex. There, I said it. Look, it’s a collection of essays about sex. I wasn’t looking for erotica but I wanted to hear more about the mechanics of it, what do the writers like and dislike, get into the detail and not just the emotions behind it. A few of the essays did so, but this collection didn’t jump out at me. It has been criticized too because its contributors are largely - in fact, almost entirely - white and straight. Grade: C

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