Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

This is one of those rare books that is not only a joy to read, but also immensely helpful. It can help all of us with something that is at once troublesome and worrisome: our memory. It does this with ease, not teaching us some grueling rote memory technique, but one that is easy, natural and intuitive. Yet Moonwalking with Einstein turns out to not be exclusively a how-to book on memory. So what is it? Well, yes, it is about memory and how to improve it, but it is at once a history of techniques, a description of what memory is and what can go wrong with it, and also a running narrative of how the author, a journalist himself with no special memory skills, becomes one of the most proficient memory athletes in America. I'd learned a mnemonic device to aid memorization decades ago while in college, and found it to be helpful, but for some reason I'd abandoned the technique once I graduated. But Moonwalking with Einstein expands the mnemonic technique I learned back then by use of something of which I'd never heard: the "Memory Palace." The Memory Palace exploits our inherent skill for remembering images and spatial locations, harnesses these two abilities we all posses in abundance, and relates them to the memorization of numbers, lists and assortments of other difficult to remember items. The amazing thing is that the Memory Palace not only makes memorization easy, it also makes it fun. What makes the book so interesting is that it is narrative non-fiction and reads like a novel. The author locks his conflict with his own memory early on, gives a sense of rising tension as he accumulates the forces to overcome its limitations, and resolves this internal conflict at the end when he participates in the US Memory Championship. I didn't read it as urgently as I did today's number one bestseller, Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, but still, I couldn't put it down. In Chapter Five, I scanned the "to-do" list of fifteen items on pages 92/3 that the author had to memorize in his initial attempt, and developed the technique for myself as I read about the author memorizing it. As my Memory Palace, I used an old home of a high school friend with which I was still familiar, constructing useful details as I went. When I had finished reading about the author memorizing the list (took me about five minutes), I had memorized it myself, and I found that the items were not only immediately memorable, but that the list of items and their sequence was still with me days later, and so imbedded in my memory that I'm sure I'll ever forget it. All this, I accomplished effortlessly. This is a truly remarkable feat for me because I'm almost seventy years old and have chronic fatigue syndrome, which adversely affects all aspects of my memory. It has also given me hope that I might finally learn ancient Greek. I tried to learn it several years ago, but found building a vocabulary so difficult that I abandoned the project. Rote memory was just too much trouble. I am interested in all things Greek, and as it turns out, the Memory Palace technique was invented in the fifth century BC by Simonides following his narrow escape from the collapse of a building. This in itself is a story you'll be interested in reading about. The author says that since the time of this ancient Greek, "the art of memory has been about creating architectural spaces in the imagination." Having been to Greece twice, I have all the makings of a superb Greek Memory Palace. While traveling around Greece and the western coast of Turkey for ten weeks, I visited many cities and islands: Athens, Thebes, Delphi, Ithaca, Mykonos, Delos, Santorini, etc. I can't count all the archaeological sites I visited. What I'm creating isn't just any old Memory Palace but actually a Memory Country. Within each location, I can identify as many locations for storing words and meanings as I need. But not only that, I can also use characters from Greek mythology to create actions and images to reinforce the material, as the author suggests. All this constitutes my Greek Memory Palace: the location where I will store ancient Greek words and meanings as I learn the language, in accordance with the instructions learned in Moonwalking with Einstein. None of it was difficult. I picked it up as I read the book. The author describes how in the past people viewed their minds as something to perfect by loading it with all sorts of intellectual material. "People used to labor to furnish their minds. They invested in the acquisition of memories the same way we invest in the acquisition of things." [page 134] Some even believed that "the art of memory was a secret key to unlocking the occult structure of the universe." [page 151] This has given me an entirely new view of how to perceive my own mind and nourish it in the future. The author also discusses how we came to lose touch with our ability to remember with the invention of the printed word. The history of that estrangement and how inventions like Wikipedia and the Internet foster that estrangement is a very interesting story. The author makes the reader aware of what is happening to us and provides a way to project ourselves into the future without suffering so much of technology's debilitating effects. Perhaps the reason this book is so successful is that the reader never loses sight of the practical use of the information the author is providing because the author is discovering it himself and actively making use of it in his quest to make it into the US Memory Championship. This is an important book. Everyone can benefit from reading it. David Sheppard

More than anything, this book has entertainment value. This is definitely a light read, but also gives great insights on the skill of memorization. The author was able to cover most general aspects of visual memorization and mind mapping and introduces the readers to the who's who of the field. He also gives some history and scientific anecdotes on the nature of memory. Admittedly, after reading the book, I was left a bit more unimpressed about the lifestyle that these super memorizers live. Talk about anticlimactic. They literally live and breathe memorization and I often find myself asking if it must take total obsession to quirky levels and "geekdom" habits to achieve a supreme memory. Memorizing the order of decks of cards and thousands of digits of the value of pi really are impressive feats, but we all know these activities are impractical and pointless, in some ways though these are evidences of how a person can train his mind to do things that are beyond his very own expectations. Joshua Foer's journey from being a curious journalist to an actual competitor and champion in the US memorization circuit is an incredible story that people can draw inspiration from. The human brain is indeed an incredible piece of equipment, now only if I can stop forgetting where I put my car keys every time.

By far the best book I've read in the last year. You may have heard of the book and its author already; Joshua has been all over the radio and television lately talking about the unlikely series of events that led to this book's creation. While covering the 1995 U.S. Memory Championships, Joshua befriended several of the contestants, who assured him that there was nothing inherently extraordinary about their memory feats. Nothing extraordinary about committing to memory the exact order of dozens of decks of cards? In less than an hour? Or a single deck in under a minute? Or spitting out the names that go with a hundred faces one only had minutes to look at? Or thousands of digits of pi? Unconvinced, Joshua asks how this is possible. Surely these are mental freaks, born quite different from us. Right? Over the next year, Joshua begins exercising his memory using techniques known and discussed by Socrates. The same techniques religious leaders have long used to memorize long Bible passages, the entire Torah, even the totality of the Koran! Less than half the book details Joshua's year of becoming a memory athlete; the rest of the book is an exploration of human memory and the long history it has in our collective culture. The works of Homer, the glorified status memory used to possess, the changes in our education system over generations, the changes that perhaps should be made today, the new world we live in with offloaded memory on electronic devices, it all goes explored. Even better are the people Joshua meets. He spends time with Kim Peek, the real life figure who inspired the movie Rain Man. Like only a few figures in recorded history, Kim remembers every single thing he reads. He reads books at a rate of ten seconds a page, with each eye scanning its own page! He spends time with a man who cannot remember anything, who lives in a constant state of the present, one sentence at a time, and what this means for his view of the world. He also discusses several classic cases from the annals of psychology, men and women who go by initials to protect their identity. In the end, Joshua has a message directed right at college students: normal people can do extraordinary things. His is no different from the rest of us. One year of dedicated work, just an hour a day, and he found himself in the finals of the U.S. Memory Championships. He found himself inducted into an exclusive fraternity, he even broke some records along the way. And what he learned about developing his memory extends to everything that takes practice. He goes at length on the theory of the "OK Plateau," where people learn to coast and not put in extra effort. Joshua's story is one about how, latent in us all, there lies the ability to push beyond this plateau and do something that would amaze even us. This is easily the most engaging book I've read this year. I liken it to BORN TO RUN in that it is part the author's story of joining a small fraternity of freak athletes and finding that anyone else could as well, and part a history of an ability with key importance to human history that is being lost in the modern age. And yet, I liked it BETTER than BORN TO RUN (which is saying a lot). For one, the subject applies to all of us who barely know a phone number anymore and would be lost without our cell phones. Plus, the personal story uses up less space, is well-documented (leaving no room for wondering about exaggerations), and it is far better written. I say all this as one of the biggest fans of BORN TO RUN. I'll be recommending this book to everyone I know (even those whose names I can never quite remember).

Su lectura es muy amena con momentos muy divertidos. Analiza la memoria desde un punto de vista diferente: el de los super-atletas de la memorización (esos que son capaces de memorizar grandes cantidades de información, y que nos dejan medio locos cuando los vemos en la televisión). Parte de la base de que todos somos capaces de convertirnos en uno de esos atletas con el suficiente entrenamiento, utilizando técnicas mnemotécnicas. De hecho Joshua Foer lo prueba en sus propias carnes, con gran éxito. Muy recomendable su lectura.

Ce livre génial m’a appris à organiser une mémoire que je croyais défaillante. Ayant subi une commotion avec amnésie partielle, j’ai toujours été persuadée que je ne récupérerais jamais ma mémoire vive. Grâce a des exercices simples et bien expliqués,ce livre m’a littéralement sauvée : À Lire absolument !

さすがキンドル 有難く尊くぞんじます。

Le parcours de Joshua Foer est absolument fascinant, et les techniques mnémoniques qu'il partage ouvrent la porte à mémoriser beaucoup plus facilement et de façon amusante toutes sortes d'informations. Suite à la lecture de son livre, j'ai lu plusieurs autres ouvrages qui décrivent plus en détail les techniques de mémorisation (Dominic O'Brian, Lynne Kelly, Harry Lorayne, Nelson Dellis, etc.). L'objectif au départ était de mémoriser l'ordre d'un paquet de 52 cartes brassées au hasard. J'ai réussi lors de mon premier essai en un peu moins de 30 minutes. Puis j'ai rapidement descendu à 15 minutes, puis 8 minutes. Il s'agit surtout de mettre ne place un système pour faciliter la mémorisation et le bonifier et l'améliorer au fur et à mesure qu'on l'utilise. Bref, un livre très agréable à lire et qui fait découvrir des techniques enrichissantes qui peuvent faire complètement changer la façon d'étudier et retenir de l'information.

I really enjoyed this book, devouring it in just a few sittings. Ostensibly, it tells the story of how the author, covering the US memory championships, takes up the challenge to enter them himself and compete the following year. But along the way the book is an overview of what we know, or think we know, about the way the brain works and how we remember (or fail to remember) stuff. Several common methods of memorisation are outlined - but note this isn't a "how to" book - as is the concept and use of memorisation itself. In a world where we don't have to remember anything - phone numbers, historical facts, the background to current events - because it's all there on devices we carry around, do we need to remember things at all? The book will appeal if you like a good yarn, or your interested in psychology or education. It is entertaining, informative and at times pretty funny, and the end is quite emotional. One of the people the author spends a lot of time with is Ed Cooke, who has since written the book "Remember, Remember..." which I bought and started straight after this. Within half an hour I could remember the names of all the Anglo-Saxon kings of England. Is that useful? No. But it's impressive (although I'm having trouble convincing friends and colleagues). More importantly, the method itself is very useful and I've employed it for other things since.