Valley of Forgetting

A WALL STREET JOURNAL TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025 ALSO NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY THE NEW YORKER AND THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY "Valley of Forgetting reminds us that scientific progress is measured not only in breakthroughs but also through the sacrifices people make, the trust that is built. It is a tender story of the unshakable will to make meaning in the face of inexorable loss. . . . Smith elegantly captures what it means to love, to belong, to hold on to one another when so much is uncertain.” —Washington Post The riveting account of a community from the remote mountains of Colombia whose rare and fatal genetic mutation is unlocking the secrets of Alzheimer’s disease In the 1980s, a neurologist named Francisco Lopera traveled on horseback into the mountains seeking families with symptoms of dementia. For centuries, residents of certain villages near Medellín had suffered memory loss as they