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If you’ve ever struggled to remember where you set down your phone, or how you know the person you just ran into at the grocery store, you’re not alone. Everyday forgetfulness is a part of living — and of aging. 

But for neuroscientist Charan Ranganath, more compelling than what we remember is why we remember. 

“The human brain is not a memorization machine; it's a thinking machine,” he writes in his new book “

Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters

Ranganath, a leading memory researcher, joined MPR News host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to talk about how memory works (spoiler: we’re not designed to remember everything) and how it shapes who we are today. 

Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on 

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Why is music so evocative? Why do some memories stick and others fade? How important is slow-wave sleep to the way memory works? One of the country’s leading neuroscientists joins MPR News host Kerri Miller on Big Books and Bold Ideas this week to talk about why memory isn’t so much who we were as who we are.

How memory works

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