Use it or lose it
Dr. Gary Small, author of "The Memory Bible" gives consolation that our brains, as the rest of our bodies, can be exercised enabling faster recall and learning, better retention, the deceleration of brain aging, and minimizing our chances of dementia. The book is broken into chapters dealing with such fundamentals as appropriate diet, exercise, minimizing stress, medications, brain aerobics, and tricks for improving short term memory.

This book is not long and very informative. All topics for improving cognitive function are clearly listed and explained in laypersons language. I personnally found the chapters on diet, mind aerobics, memory tricks to be most informative.

Dr. Small's message is very clear; use it or lose it. Societal and cultural pressures have ultimately resulted in many of us exercising our bodies on a daily basis to bring down blood pressure, cholesterol, weigh, etc. Dr. Small is insisting that the same time and effort should be applied to our waking brains to aid in the aforementioned brain activities. MAKES SENSE!!!!

Good overview of memory research and strategies
I heard about this book through the NPR program "The Infinite Mind". The books central thesis is the optimistic idea that memory loss in not inevitable and that you can chose to do something about it. Dr. Small notes that genetic disposition accounts for only a third of the influence on our memory. The rest is environment and, encouragingly, conscious lifestyle choices. Many of these are obvious - quite smoking, drink in moderation, eat healthy, exercise, get sleep, etc. but having their effects on your memory spelled out gives a powerful motivation to overcome our personal vices that we often put up with.

His emphasis on mental aerobics is interesting and I have seen it in many other places. The tricks that he lists in this book are treated in much more thorough detail in the book Mind Performance Hacks, which I would recommend as a companion to this book (or over this book if you're only likely to read / get one of the two).

Dr. Small goes into chapters that deal individually with mental evaluations, exercises, diet, medications, stress reduction and strategies for preventing memory loss. This book is an excellent introduction and summary of current research and strategies for keeping your mind sharp.

Memory Bible
Sorry I forgot what the book said. But I think it was really good. But I do not recall exactly why. Buy this book because my memory is perfect now and yours can be too :-)

2b = two bees
I picked up this book in a garage sale a few months ago. Just so you dont get any ideas, I'm not a forgetful bloke. However it is impossible for anyone to remember it all and the thought of learning new tricks to keep my brain young was something I just could not pass on. Turns out that this book is a really comprehensive guide on all things related to our brain and memory, more than what I was interested in knowing. It may prove to be really useful for people who need to refer to information of this sort for research. For me though, I quickly browsed chapter 3 & 6, the two chapters that the text quickly points has memory training skills. In both these chapters, there are exercises that involve active observation, taking mental snapshots and other organization exercises. I was too lazy to do them all however I did have some fun with mom on the memory assessments. Some of these exercises I have found to be really useful in everyday life, I now use them to remember where I park my car in the mall (hence the title) and such, so they are definitely worth going through. Another good chapter was chapter 5, 'Get fit with mental aerobics.' This chapter is filled with puzzles and brain teasers to workout the brain through creative thinking. Basically exercises to show us how ignorant and absent minded we really are. Nevertheless I couldn't resist attempting all of the exercises in this chapter. Since i did not read the entire book, I don't feel its appropriate that I rate it.

a bit arduous, but definitely worth looking into
We bought this book for my 79-year-old mother, who's in good health, very active, has no particular health concerns - but who occasionally talks about having "senior moments". I skimmed through most of it (and did some of the exercises), and she's taking it very seriously. We both find the book a bit boring, actually, but are keen to assimilate the principles involved. The first goals she set were to memorize things like her social security and license plate numbers (which, of course, all the rest of us already know by heart, no?). I find the strategy the author suggests for remembering numbers perfectly idiotic because it's much too complicated, but my mother thinks the word:number correspondence idea quite appealing. Maybe because she only has 7 digits to memorize, whereas all my phone numbers have at least 10 digits, not including the country code...