Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Humorous, scientific and thought provoking ... I liked it a lot! Joshua Foer (the author) is a journalist who happened to cover the US Memory Championships for Slate magazine and then spent the next year of his life training to be a contestant in that same event. The book covers his adventures and training during the year leading up to his entry in the US Championships. I tried one of the techniques he explains for remembering words and I can still recall the list of words ... and that was a few days ago! (Garlic, cottage cheese, salmon, wine, the socks ... and I'm not great at remembering so I impressed myself.)

But I think what made the book more interesting was that it's not just about his training. He gives arguments for and against show more memorizing and discusses how human memories were put to use in classical times before we created external storage through writing, post-it notes and computers. There was a lot of food for thought ... one idea to consider is the connection between memory and creativity. Also, amazing to note that there was a book written about memory training between 86 and 82 B.C. show less

A funny and thought-provoking look at the world of memory training. If, like me, you often find yourself unable to remember embarrassingly fundamental details of your daily life, you'll be intrigued by Foer's account of how he, an average dude with an average memory, got involved with the memory training subculture, started using their techniques, and briefly became a US memory champion. Along the way, he interviews people with strong memories, both trained and savant-like, reviews historical treatises on the art of memory, and talks about the ways that memory training both is and isn't helpful.

The official US Memory Championship involves events where you memorize four different types of items: a collection of names and faces, a group show more of random numbers, the order of a deck of cards, and a poem written specifically for the occasion. Each is just a concentrated and amplified version of techniques that all of us use unconsciously countless times in our daily lives, but everyone has had the sensation of having forgotten the name of someone they met at a party, or where they left their keys, or had some other trivial yet head-slappingly bone-headed instance of forgetfulness. Foer discusses how this much more aware we are of these memory failures in the modern era, where we're surrounded by technology whose job is to correct for our lapses yet engenders a nagging sense of learned helplessness in us - it's certainly reasonable to wonder if the ability to store numbers in a phone means that our ability to remember those numbers unaided is atrophying somehow. Could we train ourselves to remember things better and not have to rely on technology as much?

The answer to that question is complicated. Is memory a skill that can be practiced, or is it an unchangeable innate endowment? Is it more like a muscle or more like a bone? Foer relates some of the techniques he learns - chunk items together, associate items with something else you've already remembered, relate abstract things like numbers to concrete things like images and actions, try to build connections with things that provoke emotional responses - and how eventually he was able to work his way up to master-level. That's why the contrast he draws between "normal" people who have practiced memory techniques and the abilities of people with genuinely exceptional memories is so thought-provoking. Synaesthesia and Asperger's syndrome seem to be closely related to whatever it is that causes extremely good memory, but while synaesthesia is a fairly "harmless" condition, Asperger's is not, and judging by the general weirdness of the memory savants Foer profiles (or Borges' famous protagonist in his story "Funes the Memorious"), it does seem that to some extent you're either born with the ability to memorize thousands of digits of pi or you're not, and even if you put in the days and weeks it takes to mimic that talent, you'll never have the same sort of effortless skill with it that the savants do.

To that end, there's one analogy in the book that will stick with me, from when Foer is trying to answer the nature-nurture question of memory skill:

"When people first learn to use a keyboard, they improve very quickly from sloppy single-finger pecking to careful two-handed typing, until eventually the fingers move so effortlessly across the keys that the whole process becomes unconscious and the fingers seem to take on a mind of their own. At this point, most people's typing skills stop progressing. They reach a plateau. If you think about it, it's a strange phenomenon. After all, we've always been told that practice makes perfect, and many people sit behind a keyboard for at least several hours a day in essence practicing their typing. Why don't they just keep getting better and better?"

I myself am a fairly fast typist, but I've never learned to touch-type and it looks like I've stuck at my current plateau forever. Foer's explanation for why I'm stuck there is that research has shown that learning comes in three general stages: the cognitive stage is when you're learning the very basic strategies for accomplishing your task, the associative stage is when you'e got your strategies down and you're just working out the kinks, and the autonomous stage is when you've internalized the strategies to the extent that you don't even think about them anymore (this bears directly on Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 hours" theory of expertise). The way to avoid plateauing is to deliberately de-autonomize your techniques by practicing in ways that prevent you from going naturally into autopilot. This is hard: in my case, I would have to unlearn my own idiosyncratic crab-handed style by being willing to spend weeks reprogramming myself and typing like an elementary schoolchild in the meantime. The kind of memory you use when remembering names a parties isn't quite the same as the muscle memory you use when typing, but the point still stands that to improve, sometimes you have to accept temporary regressions. In Foer's words:

"The best way to get out of the autonomous stage and off the OK plateau, Ericsson has found, is to actually practice failing. One way to do that is to put yourself in the mind of someone far more competent at the task you’re trying to master, and try to figure out how that person works through problems. Benjamin Franklin was apparently an early practitioner of this technique. In his autobiography, he describes how he used to read essays by the great thinkers and try to reconstruct the author's arguments according to Franklin's own logic. He'd then open up the essay and compare his reconstruction to the original words to see how his own chain of thinking stacked up against the master's. The best chess players follow a similar strategy. They will often spend several hours a day replaying the games of grand masters one move at a time, trying to understand the expert's thinking at each step. Indeed, the single best predictor of an individual’s chess skill is not the amount of chess he's played against opponents, but rather the amount of time he's spent sitting alone working through old games."

That sounds right to me. Ultimately, after a bunch of practice Foer is able to compete with people who've been practicing for years at the US Memory Championship and becomes the American champion (interestingly, Americans are looked at as memory chumps by foreigners, who regularly destroy us in international competitions). Amusingly, even after becoming a memory champion he was still prone to the same thoughtless forgetfulness he was before - he relates a story of driving out to have dinner with friends and taking the subway home, having completely forgotten that he had driven! He closes by noting that even if memory training hadn't perfected his memory, it was was still a worthwhile thing to do, as it was about "nurturing something profoundly and essentially human". Either way, it was still an entertaining read. The bibliography also has plenty of good and slightly more rigorous material to track down afterwards too. show less

A friend of mine was reading this book at the same time I was. He expressed his disappointment. He felt that the author was taking too long to explain the methods used to improve memory.

My friend missed the point entirely.

This is not a book meant to be about how to improve your memory. Yes, you will get some tips and hints about how it is done. (Tips I have used and, as he begrudgingly admits, my friend has used.) But this is a book that is about a journey – a three-pronged journey (if I may be allowed to mix a metaphor.) The first prong is the journey to find out how to improve one's memory. The second prong is the journey to actually take these tactics and apply them in pursuit of the U.S. Memory Championship. And the third prong is show more the journey to try and understand memory and how the mind works.

As I've mentioned, the first journey is somewhat abbreviated. The tactics are discussed and the reader will learn a lot about how it is done. (The number one way it is done? Lots of hard work. There is no easy path to great memory.) But detailed training on memory enhancement can be found elsewhere.

The second journey is the backbone of this story. Foer explains the steps he goes through - the practice, the trials, the travails, the foot-pounds of energy it takes to get to a championship level. At this point in time, it probably isn't a spoiler to tell you how he did, but I'll refrain. Suffice to say that the last chapter focuses on the final event, and Foer does a great job of helping us feel the pressure, pleasure, and pain.

And the third journey is really what it is all about. What is memory? How does the mind work? Of course the author does not provide us with any answers. (No one has those answers.) But, by looking into such areas as savants and photographic memory and short-term memory loss, he provides us insight on where the research is and what it means for us.

An excellent book that should get you thinking about a lot of different things – the brain, memory, acquiring skills, how all this affects our lives, and what thinking can really do for us. I hope my friend gives it another chance once he realizes what this book is really about.

It is that good. show less

I always enjoy personal experiences taken to an extreme, especially in the pursuit of knowledge. In this one, Foer presents to us the quirky and delightful world of amateur memorizers. I liked the historical footnotes and the tradition behind memorization. I'm also comforted by the thought that there is still some importance placed on memorization - a classical education does have some merit.
Foer's dedication is perhaps misplaced, but this insider's look was comical and revealing. I'm not sure how all the tricks of the trade work, but my curiosity is definitely piqued.
A great look at what has become an ill-known art.

Mildly interesting - there was a lot about the memory championships and about the standard memory palace methods, enough to try it if you wanted to. However, I found the methods very inappropriate for me - a) for men (put in sexy women to remember better!) and b) for people who can remember faces (use lots of actors/actresses. I can recognize very few "famous" people...). That's purely personal, but when four or five chapters are discussing these methods in detail, it makes the book rather dull. Then he veered off from the pure memory palaces and started discussing _why_ bother to improve memory, and the book became far more interesting - to improve memory, improve perception, which improves your life - no gliding through without paying show more attention to things. It did end with competition, but more about the people than the methods there. I'm amused that he got as far as he did (which he explicitly mentions) mostly because of others' errors. I found the philosophy more interesting than the how-to, but overall I'm glad I read the book. show less

I picked up this book after seeing Foer speak at the National Book Festival, and enjoyed it enough that I wanted to write a review immediately. Foer is a journalist who goes to cover the National Memory Championships, and is intrigued by the claims that anyone can learn the memory techniques and excel at the competition. So he decides to devote a year to training his own memory and then competing in the Championships himself, as a fun piece of experimental journalism. In the resulting book, he discusses both his own experiences and all sorts of interesting memory-related issues. He comes across as honest and open when talking about himself, knowledgeable about the various topics that he's researched (coming from a Classics background, I show more couldn't find fault with his discussion of Homeric composition), and often funny. Possibly my favourite quote from the book: "I decided to make memorizing a part of my daily routine. Like flossing. Except I was actually going to do it." (110)

Some particular things that I want to take away from this reading:

Memory Palaces. The basic concept behind a lot of memorization is to visualize things as ridiculous situations happening in a familiar place. As you walk mentally from room to room, you may see, for example, Bill Clinton copulating with a basketball, which represents the king of diamonds, four of hearts, and seven of clubs. I don't personally plan to come up with complex card-memorizing schemes, but the idea of the memory palace should be useful just for remembering more basic lists of objects or actions.

Expertise. In order to become an expert, you need to get beyond the "okay plateau" by deliberately focusing on improvement: challenging yourself to go beyond "good enough" by figuring out areas of difficulty and actively addressing them. If you're acting on autopilot, you're not going to improve; deliberate challenge, with prompt feedback, is key.

Daniel Tammet. I read Tammet's memoir Born on a Blue Day several years ago, and found it interesting to hear about the thought processes of a savant. Foer, though, thinks that Tammet actually uses more standard memory-type techniques for some of his feats (specifically, multiplying and dividing large numbers in his head, or identifying all the prime numbers up to 10,000), instead of just knowing the answers through some sort of synesthetic process. I don't have a stake in it either way, but I have to admire Foer for taking a difficult position, especially since he could easily have excluded Tammet altogether without having much impact on the overall narrative--and he does say that he "agonized over whether to include Daniel in this book." I found the discussion fascinating.

Basically, Moonwalking with Einstein manages to be entertaining, informative, and thought-provoking all at the same time. It goes beyond the initial question of training for a memory competition and touches on all sorts of interesting related issues. I'd definitely recommend it, and I'll look forward to seeing what Foer writes next. show less

Memory is an elusive concept. It seems like something that comes and goes with age, and it is often assumed that some people have a better one than others. In reality it’s an art, an ability that you can exercise and improve just like anything else. The first half of the book focuses much more on the history of memorization and its benefits. The second half takes a drastic shift as the author himself gets pulled into the world of memory competitions. He decides to train and compete and he brings the reader along for the ride as he learns the tricks of the trade.

The concept of memory palaces was one I've heard of before but it was interesting to hear it described in more detail. To remember a long list you visualize each item in a show more specific location in a specific home. For example, if you have a grocery list you can place that in your childhood home. Say a jar of mayonnaise goes at the end of the driveway, a carton of eggs goes at the front door, etc. Then you “walk” through the house in your mind you see each of the items you visualized in the specific spot.

I never realized how critical memory was before the printing presses existed. People who had access to books could only refer back to what they’d memorized. Books were rare, as was the ability to read. Sharing stories through oral tradition was much more common that reading actual books.
“Creating new memories stretches out psychological time and lengthens our perception of our lives.”

There’s one section where Foer discusses the danger of routine making our lives literally seem shorter. When we are constantly creating new memories our life becomes more memorable. Going on a big trip, learning something new, having dinner with friends, each of those things becomes a specific moment in time that we remember. Whereas going home from work, watching TV every night and eating almost the same thing makes a whole week blend together. I loved this section because I try to constantly do new things in my life. I travel often, try new restaurants, see plays and visit museum exhibits, even being a tourist in my own city and spending time with friends fits in this category. To me, it seems like time still goes by quickly, but it’s packed to the brim! I can think of what happened last week in specific memories instead of seeing it blur together. I thought it was fascinating that actual studies have been done on this. And the conclusion was, you can live the healthiest life in the world, but if it’s only full of repetitive routines than it will still seem short.

BOTTOM LINE: I was fascinated by the whole book. Foer’s writing style is perfectly suited to make nonfiction content feel like a page-turner. I look forward to whatever he writes next.

“Monotony collapses time, novelty unfolds it.”

“Of all the things one could be obsessive about collecting, memories of one’s own life don’t seem like the most unreasonable. There’s something even strangely rational about it.

Side note: I will say it was a bit ironic to read this one while having “pregnancy brain”. At no point in my life have I had a harder time remembering small things! show less