Memory's Last Breath
Field Notes on My Dementia
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Memory's Last Breath
Buy for $21.83
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Edita Brychta
-
Gerda Saunders - author's note
-
By:
-
Gerda Saunders
About this listen
A "courageous and singular book" (Andrew Solomon), Memory's Last Breath is an unsparing, beautifully written memoir - "an intimate, revealing account of living with dementia" (Shelf Awareness).
Based on the "field notes" she keeps in her journal, Memory's Last Breath is Gerda Saunders' astonishing window into a life distorted by dementia. She writes about shopping trips cut short by unintentional shoplifting, car journeys derailed when she loses her bearings, and the embarrassment of forgetting what she has just said to a room of colleagues. Coping with the complications of losing short-term memory, Saunders, a former university professor, nonetheless embarks on a personal investigation of the brain and its mysteries, examining science and literature, and immersing herself in vivid memories of her childhood in South Africa.
©2017 Gerda Saunders (P)2017 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Somebody I Used to Know
- A Memoir
- By: Wendy Mitchell
- Narrated by: Wendy Mitchell
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 51
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 47
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 47
Wendy Mitchell had a busy job with the British National Health Service, raised her two daughters alone, and spent her weekends running and climbing mountains. Then, slowly, a mist settled deep inside the mind she once knew so well, blurring the world around her. She didn’t know it then, but dementia was starting to take hold. In 2014, at age 58, she was diagnosed with young-onset Alzheimer’s. In this groundbreaking book, Mitchell shares the heartrending story of her cognitive decline and how she has fought to stave it off.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Raised my awareness
- By Sarah Lynn on 04-29-19
By: Wendy Mitchell
-
Travelers to Unimaginable Lands
- Stories of Dementia, the Caregiver, and the Human Brain
- By: Dasha Kiper, Norman Doidge - foreword
- Narrated by: Holly Linneman
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 30
After getting a master’s degree in clinical psychology, Dasha Kiper became the live-in caregiver for a Holocaust survivor with Alzheimer’s disease. For a year, she endured the emotional strain of looking after a person whose condition disrupts the rules of time, order, and continuity. Inspired by her own experience and her work counseling caregivers in the subsequent decade, Kiper offers an entirely new way to understand the symbiotic relationship between patients and those tending to them.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Instant Classic
- By Duane on 06-05-23
By: Dasha Kiper, and others
-
Before I Forget
- Love, Hope, Help, and Acceptance in Our Fight Against Alzheimer's
- By: B. Smith, Dan Gasby, Michael Shnayerson
- Narrated by: B. Smith, Dan Gasby
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 211
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 182
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 181
Restaurateur, magazine publisher, celebrity chef, and nationally known lifestyle maven, B. Smith is struggling at 66 with a tag she never expected to add to that string: Alzheimer's patient. She's not alone. Every 67 seconds someone newly develops it, and millions of lives are affected by its aftershocks.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Poignant Memoir, Stirring Call to Action
- By Gillian on 01-29-16
By: B. Smith, and others
-
These Precious Days
- Essays
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,916
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,680
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,672
“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Heartfelt Essays, Beautifully Performed
- By Brent Holcomb on 11-23-21
By: Ann Patchett
-
This Close to Happy
- A Reckoning with Depression
- By: Daphne Merkin
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 68
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 59
This Close to Happy is the rare, vividly personal account of what it feels like to suffer from clinical depression, written from a woman's perspective and informed by an acute understanding of the implications of this disease over a lifetime. Taking off from essays on depression she has written for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, Daphne Merkin casts her eye back to her beginnings to try to sort out the root causes of her affliction.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I should be the last person to recommend this book
- By Mariaposa on 03-04-17
By: Daphne Merkin
-
The Year of Magical Thinking
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,470
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,174
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 3,185
"Life changes fast....You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends." These were among the first words Joan Didion wrote in January 2004. Her daughter was lying unconscious in an intensive care unit, a victim of pneumonia and septic shock. Her husband, John Gregory Dunne, was dead. The night before New Year's Eve, while they were sitting down to dinner, he suffered a massive and fatal coronary. The two had lived and worked side by side for nearly 40 years.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great book to Read, but I didn’t like it
- By Michael on 05-08-15
By: Joan Didion
-
Somebody I Used to Know
- A Memoir
- By: Wendy Mitchell
- Narrated by: Wendy Mitchell
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 51
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 47
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 47
Wendy Mitchell had a busy job with the British National Health Service, raised her two daughters alone, and spent her weekends running and climbing mountains. Then, slowly, a mist settled deep inside the mind she once knew so well, blurring the world around her. She didn’t know it then, but dementia was starting to take hold. In 2014, at age 58, she was diagnosed with young-onset Alzheimer’s. In this groundbreaking book, Mitchell shares the heartrending story of her cognitive decline and how she has fought to stave it off.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Raised my awareness
- By Sarah Lynn on 04-29-19
By: Wendy Mitchell
-
Travelers to Unimaginable Lands
- Stories of Dementia, the Caregiver, and the Human Brain
- By: Dasha Kiper, Norman Doidge - foreword
- Narrated by: Holly Linneman
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 30
After getting a master’s degree in clinical psychology, Dasha Kiper became the live-in caregiver for a Holocaust survivor with Alzheimer’s disease. For a year, she endured the emotional strain of looking after a person whose condition disrupts the rules of time, order, and continuity. Inspired by her own experience and her work counseling caregivers in the subsequent decade, Kiper offers an entirely new way to understand the symbiotic relationship between patients and those tending to them.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Instant Classic
- By Duane on 06-05-23
By: Dasha Kiper, and others
-
Before I Forget
- Love, Hope, Help, and Acceptance in Our Fight Against Alzheimer's
- By: B. Smith, Dan Gasby, Michael Shnayerson
- Narrated by: B. Smith, Dan Gasby
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 211
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 182
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 181
Restaurateur, magazine publisher, celebrity chef, and nationally known lifestyle maven, B. Smith is struggling at 66 with a tag she never expected to add to that string: Alzheimer's patient. She's not alone. Every 67 seconds someone newly develops it, and millions of lives are affected by its aftershocks.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Poignant Memoir, Stirring Call to Action
- By Gillian on 01-29-16
By: B. Smith, and others
-
These Precious Days
- Essays
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,916
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,680
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,672
“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Heartfelt Essays, Beautifully Performed
- By Brent Holcomb on 11-23-21
By: Ann Patchett
-
This Close to Happy
- A Reckoning with Depression
- By: Daphne Merkin
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 68
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 59
This Close to Happy is the rare, vividly personal account of what it feels like to suffer from clinical depression, written from a woman's perspective and informed by an acute understanding of the implications of this disease over a lifetime. Taking off from essays on depression she has written for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, Daphne Merkin casts her eye back to her beginnings to try to sort out the root causes of her affliction.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I should be the last person to recommend this book
- By Mariaposa on 03-04-17
By: Daphne Merkin
-
The Year of Magical Thinking
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,470
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,174
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 3,185
"Life changes fast....You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends." These were among the first words Joan Didion wrote in January 2004. Her daughter was lying unconscious in an intensive care unit, a victim of pneumonia and septic shock. Her husband, John Gregory Dunne, was dead. The night before New Year's Eve, while they were sitting down to dinner, he suffered a massive and fatal coronary. The two had lived and worked side by side for nearly 40 years.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great book to Read, but I didn’t like it
- By Michael on 05-08-15
By: Joan Didion
-
Inheritance
- A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
- By: Dani Shapiro
- Narrated by: Dani Shapiro
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,600
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,209
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,207
Inheritance is an audiobook about secrets - secrets within families, kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that has been scrupulously hidden from her for more than 50 years, years she had spent writing brilliantly, and compulsively, on themes of identity and family history.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Author makes too much out of too little...
- By River Holmes-miller on 01-16-19
By: Dani Shapiro
-
Where Memories Go
- Why Dementia Changes Everything
- By: Sally Magnusson
- Narrated by: Sally Magnusson
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 21
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 21
Regarded as one of the finest journalists of her generation, Mamie Baird Magnusson's whole life was a celebration of words - words that she fought to retain in the grip of a disease which is fast becoming the scourge of the 21st century. Married to writer and broadcaster Magnus Magnusson, they had five children of whom Sally is the eldest.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Very much appreciated.
- By M. Bond on 04-21-14
By: Sally Magnusson
-
Half Empty
- Essays
- By: David Rakoff
- Narrated by: David Rakoff
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 838
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 645
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 640
The inimitably witty David Rakoff, New York Times best-selling author of Don’t Get Too Comfortable, defends the commonsensical notion that you should always assume the worst, because you’ll never be disappointed. In this deeply funny (and, no kidding, wise and poignant) audiobook, Rakoff examines the realities of our sunny, gosh everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, pretty much as a universal rule, the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won’t come true.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Good Friend I Never Met
- By Rodney on 08-14-12
By: David Rakoff
-
Becoming Nicole
- The Transformation of an American Family
- By: Amy Ellis Nutt
- Narrated by: Amy Ellis Nutt
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 860
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 767
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 766
When Wayne and Kelly Maines adopted identical twin boys, they thought their lives were complete. But it wasn't long before they noticed a marked difference between Jonas and his brother, Wyatt. Jonas preferred sports and trucks and many of the things little boys were "supposed" to like; but Wyatt liked princess dolls and dress-up and playing Little Mermaid. By the time the twins were toddlers, confusion over Wyatt's insistence that he was female began to tear the family apart.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
More narratives like this, please.
- By book worm on 10-22-15
By: Amy Ellis Nutt
-
The Council of Dads
- My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me
- By: Bruce Feiler
- Narrated by: Bruce Feiler
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 44
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 45
As a young dad, Bruce Feiler, New York Times best-selling author and television host, received shattering news. A rare form of cancer was threatening not only his life but his family's future as well. A singular question emerged: Who would be there for his wife and daughters if he were gone? Feiler reached out to six extraordinary men who helped shape him and asked them to be present in the lives of his daughters. The Council of Dads is the unforgettable portrait of these men, who offer wisdom, humor, and guidance on how to live, love, question, and dream.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
insightful! Moving to introspection
- By julie on 03-08-16
By: Bruce Feiler
-
The Unspeakable
- And Other Subjects of Discussion
- By: Meghan Daum
- Narrated by: Meghan Daum
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 102
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 102
It's a report tempered by hard times. In "Matricide", Daum unflinchingly describes a parent's death and the uncomfortable emotions it provokes; and in "Diary of a Coma" she relates her own journey to the twilight of the mind. But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the marriage-industrial complex, of the New Age dating market, and of the peculiar habits of the young and digital.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Complaining about her dead mom.
- By Erik Hermansen on 11-23-14
By: Meghan Daum
-
The Body Papers
- By: Grace Talusan
- Narrated by: Grace Talusan
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 47
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
Born in the Philippines, young Grace Talusan moves with her family to a New England suburb in the 1970s. At school, she confronts racism as one of the few kids with a brown face. At home, the confusion is worse: her grandfather's nightly visits to her room leave her hurt and terrified, and she learns to build a protective wall of silence that maps onto the larger silence practiced by her Catholic Filipino family. Later, she learns that her family history is threaded with violence and abuse. Despite all this, she finds love, and success as a teacher.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent
- By gs on 05-10-25
By: Grace Talusan
-
Native Country of the Heart
- A Memoir
- By: Cherríe Moraga
- Narrated by: Cherríe Moraga
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 53
Native Country of the Heart is the writer and activist Cherrie Moraga's love letter to her "unlettered" mother. It begins with her mother, Elvira Isabel Moraga, who as a child, along with her siblings, was hired out by her own father to pick cotton in California's Imperial Valley. The lives of Cherrie and her mother, and of their people, are woven together in a story of critical reflection and deep personal revelation as Moraga charts her own coming to consciousness alongside the heartbreaking story of her mother's decline.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
a must read for all chicanx
- By Rachel Barnett on 04-28-19
By: Cherríe Moraga
-
A Stitch of Time
- The Year a Brain Injury Changed My Language and Life
- By: Lauren Marks
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Lauren Marks was 27 when an aneurysm ruptured in her brain and left her fighting for her life. She woke up in a hospital soon after with serious deficiencies to her reading, speaking, and writing abilities, and an unfamiliar diagnosis: aphasia. This would be shocking news for anyone, but Lauren was a voracious reader, an actress, director, dramaturg, and pursuing her PhD. At any other period of her life, this diagnosis would have been a devastating blow. But she woke up...different.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Absolutely wonderful book
- By SJMT on 01-27-19
By: Lauren Marks
-
Patient H.M.
- A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets
- By: Luke Dittrich
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 266
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 235
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 238
In 1953, a 27-year-old factory worker named Henry Molaison - who suffered from severe epilepsy - received a radical new version of the then-common lobotomy, targeting the most mysterious structures in the brain. The operation failed to eliminate Henry’s seizures, but it did have an unintended effect: Henry was left profoundly amnesic, unable to create long-term memories. Over the next 60 years, Patient H.M., as Henry was known, became the most studied individual in the history of neuroscience, a human guinea pig who would teach us much of what we know about memory today.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Sort of misleading title
- By L on 10-27-16
By: Luke Dittrich
-
He Wanted the Moon
- The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him
- By: Mimi Baird, Eve Claxton
- Narrated by: Jane Alexander, Paul Boehmer, John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
A mid-century doctor's raw, unvarnished account of his own descent into madness, and his daughter's attempt to piece his life back together and make sense of her own. Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Dr. Perry Baird was a rising medical star in the late 1920s and 1930s. Early in his career, ahead of his time, he grew fascinated with identifying the biochemical root of manic depression, just as he began to suffer from it himself.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Heartbreaking glimpse into the life of a bipolar man in the 1940s
- By H. O'Hollaren on 05-12-22
By: Mimi Baird, and others
-
The Beauty of Dusk
- On Vision Lost and Found
- By: Frank Bruni
- Narrated by: Frank Bruni
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 604
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 534
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 530
One morning in late 2017, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni woke up with strangely blurred vision. He wondered at first if some goo or gunk had worked its way into his right eye. But this was no fleeting annoyance, no fixable inconvenience.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
A peek into holding life in a positive attitude
- By R. Klein on 08-13-22
By: Frank Bruni
Critic reviews
"For anyone facing dementia, [Saunders'] words are truly enlightening...Inspiring lessons about living and thriving with dementia." (Maria Shriver, NBC's Today Show)
💔💔💔
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Heart wrenching and true
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.