Paperback: The Memory Man, by Lisa Appignanesi

First published in 2004, Appignanesi's novel unpicks the mechanics of memory, and in particular, the biochemical makeup of American neuroscientist, Herr Dr Bruno Lind. At a conference in Vienna, Lind suffers a minor fall and finds himself contemplating his European childhood – one interrupted by the Anschluss and the disappearance of his father. Later he travels to Krakow with Irena Davies, a journalist who is losing her mother to Alzheimer's.The implications of memory loss – personal and collective – are deftly fused in a novel about the interplay between science and the soul.