Why We Remember Audiobook By Charan Ranganath PhD cover art

Why We Remember

Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Why We Remember

By: Charan Ranganath PhD
Narrated by: Mark Deakins, Charan Ranganath PhD
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER Memory is far more than a record of the past. In this groundbreaking tour of the mind and brain, one of the world’s top memory researchers reveals the powerful role memory plays in nearly every aspect of our lives, from recalling faces and names, to learning, decision-making, trauma and healing.

A BEST SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR: Financial Times, Smithsonian Magazine, The Telegraph, Waterstones, The Times, Marie Claire, Greater Good Magazine

"Why We Remember offers a radically new and engaging explanation of how and why we remember."—Dr. Matthew Walker, author of Why We Sleep

"Prominent neuroscientist and Guggenheim Fellow Charan Ranganath guides us through the science of our memories with incredible insight and clear science. He combines fascinating tales of the peculiarities of memory with practical, actionable steps. Not only will every reader remember better afterward, they’ll also never forget this life-changing book.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of Maladies and Gene

A new understanding of memory is emerging from the latest scientific research. In Why We Remember, pioneering neuroscientist and psychologist Charan Ranganath radically reframes the way we think about the everyday act of remembering. Combining accessible language with cutting-edge research, he reveals the surprising ways our brains record the past and how we use that information to understand who we are in the present, and to imagine and plan for the future.

Memory, Dr. Ranganath shows, is a highly transformative force that shapes how we experience the world in often invisible and sometimes destructive ways. Knowing this can help us with daily remembering tasks, like finding our keys, and with the challenge of memory loss as we age. What’s more, when we work with the brain’s ability to learn and reinterpret past events, we can heal trauma, shed our biases, learn faster, and grow in self-awareness.

Including fascinating studies and examples from pop culture, and drawing on Ranganath’s life as a scientist, father, and child of immigrants, Why We Remember is a captivating story that unveils the hidden role memory plays throughout our lives. When we understand its power—and its quirks—we can cut through the clutter and remember the things we want to remember. We can make freer choices and plan a happier future.

©2024 Charan Ranganath (P)2024 Random House Audio
Biological Sciences Memory Improvement Psychology Human Brain
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

“This is popular science at its best: entertaining, thought-provoking and an encouragement to the reader to keep an open mind."—The Financial Times

"Clever, insightful and humorous...The most significant lesson is that we need not be prisoners to our incompletely remembered past."The Wall Street Journal

"It has never been easier to fact-check our memories against an external record and find ourselves lacking, but Ranganath is intent on giving us a new way of understanding memory."The New Yorker

What listeners say about Why We Remember

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    86
  • 4 Stars
    33
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    83
  • 4 Stars
    27
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    76
  • 4 Stars
    32
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Critical Memory

Excellent Subject; relevant research; easy to understand; narrative had great flow and comparable analysis. Thank you!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

great new ideas

very useful. intriguing. I recommended this highl5. gear for review of all other pursuits of learning

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Reserearch, storytelling

Excellent work! Makes cognitive science accessible through personal stories, and cites relevant research to help you dive deeper when necessary. Strong recommend.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

What a fantastically written book!

I throughly enjoyed this book. I think you accomplished your goal, if your goal was to explain to the reader "why we remember”. Well done

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good on Two Levels

Ranganath does a good job of laying out the differing but complementary roles of the Cortex and Hippocampus, though sometimes he dives a little more deeply into the research underlying his explanation.

For the layman like myself the areas he illuminated best were the degradation of memories over time, False Memories, the impact of memory on Learning, and Social Media’s effect on Memory. His conversational approach and use of storytelling made for an easy read.

Four stars. ****

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Extremely informative

If you are interested in neuroscience or scientific literature, this book is just perfect for you. It has great humor and shows what a true through and through scientific understanding is capable of. A great book if you like cutting-edge science.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Timely, well integrated.

Loaded with information from manu sources and ages. I am applying things learned here now and no doubt for a long time to come.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

I liked very much the narration and the authors touch on human brain structure

Very interesting topic. It is good to be familiarized with a complex dynamic mechanism like the brain and all its components. I think the length is perfect since it could be a bit tedious at times (I waited to get the point and had to listen through repetitive summaries about the brain).

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Need more examples of how to improve memory

i would have liked charan to have narrated more and also provide more real world examples to prove his point

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Different kinds of memories

I liked following the information about learning the way that memories are laid down and change over time. Learning about ways to study to get the strongest memories was very useful. The section on how to correct fake news by waiting some time after it appears and fact checking it is more effective than fact checking immediately of shortly afterwards

Fake news and real news are often difficult to differentiate. Fact checking is required but should be done when we are recalling the memory and we can correct them as we find out the truth.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!