For most people, memory is not a human function as much as something to be purchased by the gigabyte. My memory is, alas, what Professor Nietzsche might call all-too-human. But saying, “I’m no Harold Bloom” is no excuse if we aspire to be good, if not great, readers. Regarding Bloom’s legendary memory simply as an unattainable aberration, and ours as unimprovable, we doom our own memories to Magical Number Seven mediocrity.