The human brain is desperately fragile in some ways and incredibly powerful in many others. Dementia is the quintessential example of mental fragility, but dealing with dementia can awaken the full power of the brain in those who are obliged to care for its victims. In Love and Little Birds, author John Radway shares the journal of his struggle to cope with the dementia that eventually claimed the life of his wife, Claire, at the age of seventy-five.

Divided into two parts, the first section describes Radway's attempts to grasp the meaning of dementia, while the second...