Reviews for The Vintage Book of Amnesia: An Anthology of Writing on the Subject of Memory Loss

The average rating for The Vintage Book of Amnesia: An Anthology of Writing on the Subject of Memory Loss based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-03-06 00:00:00 Igor Susekov Two problems with this book. First, the title is misleading since only about 1/5 of the stories (and a couple of essays) deal with what I would call amnesia, the rest could mostly be loosely defined as mind or memory stories, and about 1/10 just don't belong here. They must have been editor favorites that Lethem had been dying to use somewhere. This wouldn't be a big problem if most of the stories were exceptional. I'm not adverse to genre bending but I expect a book like this that calls itself out as a particular thing, is that thing. The second problem is they're not exceptional overall. These stories are overall average and a few below average. Most were just dull. There were only one or two that really grabbed my attention and became more memorable (he, he). Even the Lethem contribution starts great and then just devolves into (alleged) cleverness. The only thing I'm sure of is in about 2 years I will have developed amnesia whenever someone asks me anything about this book.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-06-28 00:00:00 Carol Ace Rarely do I find an anthology of stories as consistently enjoyable as this one. The fiction varies in genre and style, some of it quite innovative, some of it excerpted from longer work. I don't have the book with me to cite, but I remember stories by Philip K. Dick, Samuel R Delany, Kelly Link, Shirley Jackson (I loved hers!, not one I'd read anywhere else) among others. Recommended for those who like stories that are eerie and inventive, resonant and memorable.