A scientist's memoir, his story of basic research and the path of curiosity and collaboration that led him to our current understanding of the molecular/cellular basis for memory, from the 60s to the early 00s. There's a wonderful 100-page history of neuroscience that covers everything important about what we know about how neurons work, and a fantastic backstory of interest in psychoanalysis and Austria, his childhood home. He does not have anything nice to say about the Austrian welcome of the Nazis in WWII.