You know who I'm talking about?

I have a terrible memory for movies and celebrities' names. Even book titles and authors slip away shortly after I've read them.  Here's an honest example, and  I'll have to google this to find her at the end of the paragraph. There is a popular woman author who has written a dozen or more contemporary books about women and families (I think). I've read at least two of them. Her name has an A in it, but it's not Anne Rice (vampires - my sister read all of these) or Anita Shreve or Anita Brookner (I'm always mixing these two up in my head. I like Anita Brookner's brooding English writing very much.) The woman I'm trying to remember wrote a book about couples who adopt a Chinese orphan, and have various troubles adapting to it. I remember that it was very good and that I was the first person to check it out of Molesey Library.

OK, it took me about 5 minutes to find her; in the end I had to google "American woman novelists Ann..." but I found Anne Tyler on the list. The book was Digging to America, published in 2006. But it really annoys me that I can't remember the name of the book or the author. I remember the story and where I read it and my pictures of the action, but the names slide away.

This failing is particularly annoying when I'm trying to argue with someone, or at least make a point, and the evidence I need -- the examples, authors, films, musicians -- has slipped out of my grasp. Often it happens in a moment, as I'm beginning the sentence, and by the time I get to the point, I've lost my data.  My aural memory is good; I can remember pieces of music, or even sometimes the way the missing name sounds, the number of syllables it contains and what consonant it begins with.

Earlier today I was groping for the name of Darius Rucker, (very cool country singer, former lead of Hootie and the Blowfish, who had a rebirth in the industry and reinvented himself as a country singer). I kept saying, Desmond Morris (British anthropologist and author of the 1970s classic Man Watching) instead.

If this is an early sign of dementia, I would like to know now.