"Loss is loss," Judt writes, "and nothing is gained by calling it a nicer name." Many of these chronological essays written while Judt struggled with ALS first appeared in the New York Review of Books, but taken together, they offer an astute portrait of a life cut short -- but one also fully, richly lived. Judt writes with the same incisive intellectual clarity and polished writing of his other books, here evoking specific experiences formative to his childhood and intellectual growth. Yet, as critics point out, The Memory Chalet is no typical memoir. Instead, it goes well beyond personal, self-driven recollections to ruminate on the larger importance of JudtÕs experiences. In the end, "perhaps The Memory Chalet isn't an uplifting work," concludes the Denver Post. "It is better than that: It is a sustaining one." This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.