Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything [Hardcover]

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 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.

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 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 show more 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 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 show more 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 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.

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 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 show more 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 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 show more 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

I heard Josh Foer reading at the Brookline Booksmith, and while I wasn't so interested in the memory championship, he said just enough about the externalization of memory that I made sure to pick up his book from the library. While the writing at times is, well, not quite polished enough for my taste, I was impressed by the breadth of Foer's inquiries. Yes, much of this book is about the rarefied world of memorization competitions, but Foer skillfully interweaves this personal narrative (which includes some hilarious self-conscious passages) with an investigation of the history of memorization, its role in education and its use in our everyday, conscious encounters. That, for me, is the real value of this book. It peeks under the cover of our assumptions about language, memory, and our own limitations.

Because the title of this book has apparently confused some people: this is not about Einstein. The title is referring to the memorization technique Foer learned, which involves populating a "memory palace" with bizarre and therefore memorable imagery that one has in some way linked to the less memorable information one wants to memorize.

I listened to the audiobook, so apologies if I have some of the details wrong. If I remember right, this book begins with Foer sitting in on a memory competition for an article he was writing. After the event, he spoke to one of the participants, who told him that, with enough training in the right techniques, anyone could become a memory champion. Foer was initially unconvinced but willing to give it a shot.

This book's overall framework is Foer's own memory journey from "regular guy" to competitor in the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship, but along the way he writes about the history of memorization techniques, the science of memory and learning, the world of memory championship competitors, why supposedly photographic memories don't exist, and more.

Although this was often a fascinating book, it also had some incredibly annoying and misogynistic sections. For example, Foer's mentor was part of the KL7, a "secret" society of memorizers who came across like pickup artists and stereotypical frat brothers. I forget the exact details, but joining the KL7 involved a combination of beer drinking, successful card memorization, and kissing a show more nearby woman. Several of the members of KL7 seemed to have learned memorization techniques primarily so they could impress women who might otherwise be put off by their behavior, lack of jobs, etc. Even Foer admitted that he got a little weird during his memory improvement journey, essentially living in his parents' basement as he practiced memorization techniques for hours and wore blinders while staring at cards and random numbers.

Foer spent so much time writing about the KL7 members and similar guys that, for a while there, it sounded like the world of memory championships was composed entirely of men. Even the techniques they employed seemed very oriented towards men - the secret of the "memory palace" memorization method, for example, involved making one's mental images as funny and/or raunchy as possible (be prepared for a heavy amount of male-gaze aspects in Foer's descriptions of his own mental imagery and the imagery he suggests readers picture when trying out the technique themselves). The few times Foer wrote about female memory championship competitors, my brain latched onto them like a traveler in the desert who's just come across on oasis.

Unfortunately, those might as well have been mirages, because Foer never spent much time on them, even when the tantalizing bits of information he included seemed to contradict what he'd written about the KL7 members' memorization techniques. For example, rather than linking the poetry she needed to memorize to particularly memorable imagery, one female memory championship competitor told Foer that her technique involved deeply understanding the poem and feeling its emotions. I really wish Foer had explored that a bit more.

I found many of the topics the book covered to be interesting, which somewhat made up for the company Foer kept while he was researching and studying memory. It also helped that I listened to the audiobook version, so there were times I could just tune out or speed through the parts that irked me so that I could get back to the more interesting stuff.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

Foer chronicles his foray into the world of memory in this intelligent and fun book. The perfect combination of the personal and the academic, Moonwalking with Einstein had me completely hooked. Intelligent. Fun. Insightful. Funny. Inventive. Fabulous. And a host of other adjectives that start with I and F.

My first brush with the study of memory occurred in my Classical Rhetoric course while in the Masters program at DePaul. We read the Rhetorica ad Herennium, a text mentioned often in Foer's work, and while I freely admit that this wasn't exactly the highlight of my reading life, this text and other works by Cicero gave the class a foundation for memory studies. In particular, the works discussed the use of a memory palace to solidify lists in our minds. Tricks like this sprinkle the text which I really enjoyed (and am trying to use in my daily life). At one point, Foer has the reader play along with him, using a memory palace to remember a to-do list. Three days after reading that section, I still remember the freaking list.

This, in my opinion, is narrative nonfiction at its best: personal, informative, and entertaining. The perfect combination of inquiry and experience, the book used personal experience to really dig into an academic topic.

“On average, people squander forty days annually compensating for things they've forgotten.” That seems to be a widely exaggerated number but it does make a good point. We forget A LOT! This is the age of constant information, a continuous barrage of…let's face it, crap but I think our brains are structured to filter out most of what we see, read and hear. So, how do can we remember the important things?
Josh Foer, younger brother of Jonathan, is a science journalist with an average memory. He begins to explore the world of mental athletes, an oddball bunch of misfits, who compete in Memory Championships. Foer quickly learns that these “brainy” individuals have normal brains and memory functions but have trained themselves to remember a staggering amount of information. The author then decides to train himself, with some help and then enter the U.S. Memory Championships, where he ends up doing exceptionally well.
This book is a lot of fun and very informative. He does describe the many techniques of memory learning, including the “Memory Palaces”, which are fascinating. Personally, it sounds like to much work, but it sure is enjoyable to read about. Recommended.

audiobook - The story of a journalist who sets out to learn about the world of professional mnemonists (people who memorize things) and accidentally becomes the United States Memory Champion.
The latter parts of this book were way better than the bulk of it. I had heard of many of the techniques mentioned in this book, but I also knew that I wasn't going to take the time to use them in everyday life. So I was much more interested in how Joshua did at the championship, and especially his research on whether a man claiming to be a savant was actually utilizing memory techniques but possibly unaware of it.

The best parts were 1) Joshua Foer doesn't take himself or his work too seriously and 2) at the end, everyone gets drunk.

Joshua Foer got interested in memory when a chance visit to a museum dedicated to physical strength got him wondering about the mental equivalent, a bit of googling got him to feats of memory, and a comment by a memory champion that anyone can learn the techniques piqued his curiosity. He set out to interview the major players in world memory championships, and with their encouragement decided what better way to understand the process than to enter a competition himself. The US Memory Championship was regarded as within his reach; American “mental athletes” pale in comparison their European counterparts. He recruited a researcher to test his memory baseline (as expected: nothing special) and improvement over time, and went to work.

The fundamental technique is chunking. Instead of trying to remember digits individually, group them into pairs or triplets. Instead of trying to remember meaningless digits, convert them into meaningful items. The Major System associates each digit 0-9 with a consonant, so each pair of digits becomes a word by inserting a vowel between the consonants. The PAO system associates each pair of digits 00-99 with a person performing an action using an object, so each string of six digits combines the person of the first pair, the action of the second pair, the object of the third pair. (This is the origin of moonwalking with Einstein.) Instead of trying to remember an abstract sequence, convert it into tangible locations along a path. This is show more the gist of the memory palace (which has been around for 2000 years): place attention-grabbing scenarios in a familiar space, and step through it. The scenarios should have associations with multiple senses and emotions: e.g. ugly or beautiful, cacophonous or musical, bitter or sweet, fetid or fragrant, sharp or soft; funny, risque, bizarre. The space can be a building or a landscape, real or imaginary. Creativity helps. Creativity on the fly is difficult, but can be aided by practice with pre-memorized systems.

As you might suppose, people who devote careers to memorization can be a tad eccentric, and a survey of the field, along with the coaching sessions, yields an engaging cast of characters. Practice has its amusing moments, such as what happens when one of the people is your mother, and some of her actions are too disturbing to contemplate. The goal of winning the US Memory Championship keeps the many digressions more or less on track. In the end (not revealing the result of the competition), it turns out that developing skills for a championship doesn’t do much for life in general. While formal test results improved, recall of, say, the content of books did not. Memorization takes conscious effort; it’s not that you train your brain and from then on everything automatically settles into position for later retrieval. But if you have specific situations where the techniques can be usefully applied, apparently there is truth to the claim that anyone can do it. show less

Our memory skills, just like our food cravings for fat and sugar, were better suited to our days as hunter gatherers, according to Joshua Foer in Moonwalking with Einstein. Back then, what our ancestors needed to remember was where to find food, what plants are poisonous, and how to get home. This makes us great at remembering visual imagery, and not so good at remembering multiple passwords, numerous phone numbers or detailed verbal instructions.

The trick to memory techniques is changing the tedious data you want to remember into something so flamboyant and sensational that you can’t forget it. It works. With the help of images like the three Petticoat Junction sisters hula hooping in my living room I can still remember the fifteen item “to do” list Foer’s memory coach used as an example more than a week after I read that section of the book.

Moonwalking with Einstein is part a history of mnemonic practices beginning long before the advent of writing, part a cursory introduction to some memory tricks including the memory palace, and part a chronicle of the year or so Foer spent developing his memory skills in preparation for the U.S. Memory Championship—this aspect of the book reminded me of Word Freak, a Scrabble championship account by Stefan Fatsis. Foer also covers the phenomenon of savants, what techniques you can use to push yourself past being just okay at any given skill and how memorizing can help you be more aware and maybe even a little wiser. show more Unfortunately, even after all his training Foer reports that he still sometimes misplaces his keys. This is an absorbing and entertaining book. show less

REVIEW ALSO ON: http://bibliomantics.com/2011/09/16/a-walk-down-my-memory-palace-cassie-la-break...

If the name Joshua Foer sounds familiar, it’s probably because his brother is Jonathan Safran Foer, author of bestselling novels Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Because of Jonathan, I had an extremely awkward conversation with my ex-boss about how he keeps memories in Ziploc bags. Thankfully I have nothing against Joshua (no Safran) Foer, who helped me memorize a random stranger’s shopping list.

In the driveway of my childhood home there is a giant jar of pickled garlic, on the porch is Claudia Schiffer bathing in a swimming pool of cottage cheese, in the living room where we used to keep our Christmas tree is peat smoked salmon. Next to it on the maroon couch are six bottles of white wine having up-tight conversations with one another. On the side table hanging from a lamp are three pairs of brightly coloured socks, three women are hula-hooping on our dining room table. In our kitchen where I used to mess around with Play-Doh a man in a snorkel is about to dive into our kitchen sink while a dry ice machine is on full blast next to him. My father is at the kitchen table on the computer, emailing a she-male named Sophia.

That is a memory palace that Joshua Foer and his memory coach Ed Cooke ingrained in my mind when I read Moonwalking with Einstein. It is pretty impressive that I remember this considering I read about these items last week show more yet I can’t recall what I ate for breakfast two days ago.

Basically, a memory palace is a 2500 year old mnemonic technique created by Simonides of Ceos who also referred to this technique as the “art of memory”. The premise is this, you take the things you want to remember and place each of these things in your memory on a specific pathway. This imagined space within your mind is the memory palace, and to recall the list one only needs to retrace the steps you took placing these items there. It is easiest to use a well known space such as a childhood home or a current residence. The more bizarre and ridiculous you make these memories, the easier it will be to remember them.

This is just one of the techniques that Foer discusses in the book, which focuses on his journey to win the U.S. Memory Championship, a day long event with requires memorizing the order of decks of cards, the text and punctuation of a poem, the names and faces of strangers, random list of words, and other such feats of mental dexterity. And as Foer quickly discovers, these mental athletes are regular people with regular memories, and as he proves, anyone can use their techniques to memorize vast amount of information. Although you might not want to spend your short time on this earth learning parlor tricks.

The hardest and least useful skill is the poetry memorization. It’s difficult to build a memory palace for a poem because a lot of the words are more symbolic than concrete, and capitalization and punctuation counts toward your score. In my academic career my fellow Bibliomantics and I did a lot of memorization. In high school we had to memorize Hamlet’s famous soliloquy. I remember the lines that Adam Sandler recited in Billy Madison, about four lines in the middle, and the words “bare bodkin”. Even less can be said of the opening to Beowulf I had to memorize in Old English. I recall, Hwæt! (What) We Gardena in geardagum (geardagum = year)… þæt wæs god cyning (that was a good king). That’s all I remember out of 11 lines, and I couldn’t even recall how to spell it. Rote memorization is not the way to go in a memory competition.

In addition to the various memory techniques found within, Foer also researches individual cases of memory. There is the reigning memory champ Ben Pridemore, who can memorize the “order of 1,528 random digits in an hour” and the order of a deck of playing cards in only 32 seconds. He also knows 50,000 digits of pi. There is the reporter referred to only as “S”, who has synesthesia, a disorder in which words have “color, texture, and taste” who seems unable to forget information whether it be important or not (if you watch “Weeds”, it is also the disease Doug suffers from). Foer also discusses people with horrible memories, such as EP, who can only hold onto his current, most recent thought. His past memories are still intact, but the last president he remembers is Roosevelt. He is pretty much the saddest AND cutest little old man ever.

The book itself is very very very thorough and there’s a lot of information to take in, which can be overwhelming at times. But I got to learn a lot of fun vocabulary, like the phonological loop, which is the inner thoughts someone has inside their head and the OK plateau, which is the point where a person levels out on their accomplishments and no longer improves, as with typing or driving. In the 50′s they would have called it the A-OK plateau.

While the book is an interesting look into the world of memory and the techniques one can use to train it, a lot of Foer’s discoveries cannot really be harnessed in every day life. You will still lose your keys, where you parked your car, and you will inevitably forget that important birthday/anniversary/holiday. Thankfully, there’s an app for that. show less

This was a hoot. The author is a reporter who starts out investigating people who enter memory competitions, then decides to enter one himself; he does remarkably well. After all his study and achievement though, he still has trouble remembering where he left his keys. Memory seems to be a rather mechanical skill, rather than a gift. I learned quite a bit about the skill, but this book didn't give me the incentive the master it. It made a good memory seem like a rather shallow thing. A subjective (and sometimes defective) memory seems to offer more

Who knew that a book on memory would be the most visual experience of my year? Of course any memory expert will tell you that the easiest memories to recall are ones that stand out from the rest. Moonwalking with Einstein is a history of memory and of trying to remember. It's also a partial how-to guide on memorizing unusually long lists of trivial data. One of the most interesting tidbits from the book is how we consider the ability to recall nearly perfectly a good thing and yet those rare individuals whose minds approach a true photographic status are seen as handicapped due to their lessened ability to distinguish the quality of a memory.

There's a scene near the end of the book, during the Speed Cards round at the U.S. Memory Championships, where the title of the book comes from. The excitement of this moment is a perfect climax for both the reader and the author's efforts.

Given the recent success of a movie like Moneyball (about baseball statistics) I think it's possible that a movie about memory could be a hit as well.

It's about memory. The author spends a year learning how to compete in the United States memory championship, tells the history of great memorizers from ancient times and shares funny stories about how this subculture works. Pretty entertaining and very geeky.

Foer’s book certainly comes across as well-researched, but his background as a journalist shines through, perhaps a little too strongly; at times, it felt as though he was stringing together several magazine articles – albeit, well-researched magazine articles, with ample humorous anecdotes and interviews – rather than writing a cohesive, subtly tied together, full-length book. All the same, the recurring theme throughout the second half of the book is the consequences of the gradual downfall of memory training and the benefits (or lack thereof) of its revival in a world in which a sizeable portion of the population have Google apps on the iPhones. Having personally studied a language that has been experiencing its own gradual waning for centuries, I enjoyed his explorations into how memory training’s importance in ancient Greece and Rome came to decline with the advent of the printing press in the sixteenth century, the inception of child-based educational philosophies in the early twentieth century, and of course the Internet in the late twentieth century. As convenient memory crutches have appeared, the task of memorizing – whether through hard-effort memory palaces or harder-effort rote memorization – has been seen to become of less value, and questions remain about how to qualify or quantify the value of its reintroduction. Exactly what benefit does a student gain from memorizing the Gettysburg Address? Memorization doesn’t equal intelligence, so show more exactly how should intelligence be judged? Foer never really says, leaving the reader with the opportunity, the research, and the techniques to make his own decision. show less

This was actually much better than I'd expected -- I started it thinking it'd be a lighthearted look at memory, and it turned out to be an engaging yarn. A surprisingly good fusion of ancient history, psychology, anecdote, with a dab of bildungsroman and something else (pop science? quirky self-help?) thrown together, this was totally gripping. With weirdly useful tips on memory (more compelling, maybe, because it's not the main point of the book).

THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE AUDIOBOOK VERSION

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Participatory journalism at its best, Joshua Foer (brother to novelist Jonathan Safran Foer) explores the world of mnemonists (memory experts to you and me) who can quickly memorize long lists of numbers, words, passages of poetry and more. Foer goes from covering the U.S. Memory Championships for a magazine article to competing in it, and along the way explores how memory works, what tricks and techniques mnemonists use, what role memory plays in our lives and many more little side passages that were always fascinating and interesting.

MY THOUGHTS

This book is just fascinating. It held my attention throughout and had me mourning its end. After listening, I was compelled to try building a memory palace of my own … and damn if it didn’t work! More than 9 months after getting a list of 15 random words from Mr. Jenners and BB, I can still remember the list IN ORDER. If you’re looking for an interesting, amusing and educational non-fiction book, this would be an excellent choice.

ABOUT THE NARRATION

Mike Chamberlain was the narrator, and his voice was the perfect fit for Foer’s book and personality. (His voice had a bit of a nerdy flavor to it that seemed appropriate.) Because the book is written in the first person, his narration made the book really come alive. In my mind, Joshua Foer talks exactly like Mike Chamberlain—whether he likes it or not.

After journalist Josha Foer covered the United States Memory Championship for a magazine story, he became fascinated by the feats of memory and the mental athletes who perform them. He decided to train for the competition himself, and we get to go along for the ride. He shares some of the techniques that memory athletes use, findings from scientific research on memory, and interesting profiles of some of the quirky individuals who compete in memory contests.

This is non-fiction at its best. Foer weaves interesting facts in with the story of his training. I was fascinated to learn about the techniques that memory athletes use to memorize strings of numbers or decks of cards. I may even use some of the techniques myself. Some semesters, I meet 100+ students on the first day of class, and I struggle to remember their names. Foer has convinced me that I can overcome this lack of natural memory. However, even Foer admits that good memory requires concentration and practice. After all of his training, he admits that he took the subway home one night after meeting friends for dinner, completely forgetting that he had driven to the restaurant and left his car in the parking lot.

I also enjoyed Foer's reflection on whether it is worth it to develop memory skills. After all, can't we just store everything we need to know in our smartphones or Google the facts that have slipped our minds? In the end, Foer decides that memory is still an important talent, concluding, "How we perceive show more the world and how we act in it are products of how and what we remember. . . Our ability to find humor in the world, to make connections between previously unconnected notions, to create new ideas, to share in a common culture: All these essentially human acts depend on memory." show less

Foer is an engaging and eminently readable writer. He details both his experiences training for the US Memory Championships and his scholarship in tracking down every possible lead in the realm of exceptional mnemonists, so the book became both a journalistic research exposition and a personal memoir.

I especially liked his ending thesis on -why- memory was so important, and his final thoughts on how it carries over into the wider world beyond impressive party tricks. This sentence in particular struck me:
"If the essence of creativity is linking disparate facts and ideas, then the more facility you have making associations, and the more facts and ideas you have at your disposal, the better you'll be at coming up with new ideas. As Buzan likes to point out, Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, was the mother of the Muses."

And I know I've said it already, but Foer's writing style is just superb. He is clear, concise and deeply entertaining, and reading his book was an absolute breeze. I have also applied several of the tricks he describes in my own life; for example, helping my roommate memorize all the dishes and ingredients at her restaurant when she first became a waitress.

I took several ‘runs’ at reading this book and my opinion was constantly evolving. The biggest difficulty was with redundancy and repetitive overviews. However, the discussion of neuroscience research and case studies was fascinating and balanced the shortcomings. I was rather bored with details of memory competitions since that topic didn’t appear to contribute to the book’s theme. There were many valuable insights that caught my interest: one of the best was by the author’s friend, Ed, commenting that the years seem to zoom by faster as we age because we’re less mindful of the events; that we remember significant occasions but the sameness of the daily routine makes no impression.

Ed claimed (and I agree) that the more memories you pack into your lives, the slower time seems to pass. To paraphrase another valuable insight: before the advent of the printing press, people used oral tradition and recounted memories, keeping track of important knowledge and history. With the progression of owning large libraries, people became less able to remember because they relied on books. Nowadays, folks read dozens of books a year and can barely recall what they read a few weeks later. I recommend reading this book yourself to discover the gems that lie there. You’ll have to read with an open mind!

This is a witty, beautifully well written exploration of both the art and the science of memory; part diary, part scientific study.
Joshua Foer, a budding journalist reporting on the rather haphazard American Memory Championships, finds himself becoming intrigued by the exploits of a small band of ‘mind athletes’. Annually they test themselves in a series of memory challenges to, for example recall the sequence of packs of cards, random strings of words or numbers and other oddball feats of remembering.

The book charts a year in which Joshua transitions from reporting on the event to learning the secrets of memory techniques to a level where he himself can compete.

The book captures the discoveries and achievements of this year with chapters which alternately serve as a diary and a text book outlining the history of the role, nature and purpose of memory and the efforts of science and art to illuminate and understand this most important of human abilities.

Along the way Joshua explores the medical case histories of nature’s memory superstars and falterers, for example those impaired through accident or illness, and the glimpses they give into the process of memory. The book is full of interesting asides, for example the descriptions of the earliest books, the first means of recording memory outside the mind, gave me new insights into the development of writing. It seems these earliest of books were created almost as music scores detailing the sounds to be made as they show more were read aloud.

Incidentally the intriguing book title is a reference to one of the memory techniques that Joshua learns in preparation for his attempt at the American memory Championships, a technique that utilises the ability to recall pictures far more effectively than words or numbers.

This book will entertain and educate and no doubt inspire. I highly recommend it. show less

I became interested in reading this book for two reasons. One is that my younger son, a total non-reader, discovered this book and read it cover-to-cover and then recommended it to me. The second reason was that I saw Joshua Foer speak about this book in person at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC. At that time, I was highly amused to learn that the author won the very contest that he was simply researching as a topic of investigative journalism. Foer was also very engaging and entertaining speaker.

I liked that Foer explored all the nooks and crannies of the topic of memory...from the history of memory, to the current practice of memory, to teaching memory techniques, to his personal involvement in a prestigious memory contest. What I've learned mostly from this book is that we've only begun to explore the topic of memory and how it works.

One aspect of this book that I found especially interesting was Foer's questioning of the innate abilities of savant Daniel Tammet, whose memoir Born on a Blue Day described his synesthesia, a condition in which numbers take on a distinctive shape, color, texture, and emotional "tone". I would never have thought to disbelieve in any way Daniel's abilities, but Foer approached this issue from the perspective of a trained mental athlete plus he discovered a part of Daniel in which that savant needed money so was kind of forced to market himself.

For those who enjoy reading nonfiction, this is quite an interesting book with a show more practical value as well. I've started using some of the memory techniques described in this book, and they really work! show less

Moonwalking with Einstein a memoir about the Foer's dive into the world of competitive memory competitions. Centering on the methods that these contestants used to visualize incredibly long lists of words or three shuffled decks of playing cards, etc. and then repeat them back in timed competitions. The author himself found this so intriguing that he took a year or more to train himself and become a contestant in a major competition. Near the end of the book that these training methods are mostly useless to those of us who just wish to better our memories. Theses are really only suited to competitions. The usefulness of keeping facts and dates in our brain is of some use for sure but a pencil and paperwork just fine for me. Honestly, I can't remember why I had this book on my shelf. Ironic that.

I thought it was really unique the way the author combined his personal experiences with his research. The writing style and the way the book mostly explained everything with no prior knowledge needed really helped me understand the subject.

I absolutely love it when reporters immerse themselves to such a degree that they become obsessed with the topic they're reporting on and master it. The fact that the author WON the memory contest is just the graviest of all gravy. Foer's research and attention to detail is impeccable, and the book is a fun, fun read (if you like this stuff, naturally) despite the fact that all the adventure is literally happening inside people's heads! I've been practicing the techniques revealed in the book and it has most certainly helped. I think I'm going to try to memorize a deck of cards. I'll let you know how that goes.

27. Moonwalking with Einstein : The Art and Science of Remembering Everything (Audio) by Joshua Foer, read by Mike Chamberlain (2011, 271 pages in paper form, Read Apr 23 – May 6)

Reviews are mediocre on this, which surprises me because I really enjoyed listening to it. Read really nicely by Mike Chamberlain, Foer looks into how our memories work--both biologically and in practice. He covers memory competitions and gets to know some of the leading competitors. One of the first things he learns is that that the "grand masters" don't have unusually strong memories, but instead are just a group of quirky individuals who have developed sophisticated techniques to give them the tools to retain incredible amounts of information. And the foundation of these techniques are the same methods scholars used for hundreds of years, when books were rare and precious, to memorize texts and facts, methods that today we have mostly all but forgotten about. Frances Yates's [The Art of Memory] is mentioned several times.

Foer decides to develops his own skills and ends up winning the US memory championship (one of the easier memory championships to win), something I think actually turns off some readers. It didn't bother me, but it's not the most interesting part of the book and, since it comes at the end of the book, it happens to be the part I remember the most.

Fascinating, and (I can't resist...) memorable. Begun out of curiosity and engaging enough to make me want to look into some things, I am honest enough with myself to know that I will never choose to commit the time and effort that Foer did. Less a book about remembering and more a narrative of a fringe competitive world and a journalistic look at memory phenomena, it still is an interesting read. I did pause in the reading to teach myself how to calculate days of the week for given dates (I was always fascinated with those who I knew could do it - one is autistic). It only took about an hour and then practice to reinforce the calcs, but now that I know a method, I just have to keep practicing to retain the skill. That will be my commitment. But back to Foer...his achievement, however obscure, is still an achievement and the book invites the interested to read further.

Loved this book. It helped me understand and be kind to my mind, and find ways to really improve my memory in certain areas.

Reminded me a lot of Stephan Fatsis "Word Freaks" as it features a similar group of notable, slightly off-beat characters engaged in the pursuit of mental perfection, even as their interpersonal relationships are often lacking or non-existent.

I especially liked the historical overview of written vs. oral transmission of facts and dates.

The one element of the book that made me a wee bit uncomfortable was his questioning of the legitimacy of Daniel Tammet, author of Born on a Blue Day. I so want to believe he is legitimate.

Foer became interested in people who participate in competitive memorization contests, and when those people told him that anyone can do it, he put that idea to the test and spent a year learning advanced memorization techniques and successfully competing in memorization tournaments.

I read this because I was interested in learning some memorization techniques myself. The book does discuss some of the techniques in detail, but it also spends a lot of time talking about the people who participate in memory championships, the history of the competitions, and Foer's own experiences. That was all reasonably interesting, but wasn't the information I was really looking for.

If you're interested in memorization techniques, I think Mary Carruther's Book of Memory is far more interesting.

I picked this book up because I was curious about how to improve my own memory. I suffer from medical issues that make remembering stuff more difficult than the average person. This book turned out not to be a book to teach you specific ways to improve your memory, but was instead one journalist’s journey to do the same.

Foer became interested in memory training after covering a competition. It piqued his interest enough that he decided to go through a year of memory training with a coach, Ed Cooke, and become a competitor himself. It isn’t just about his own training though. Foer is a journalist, and he provides ample research material, including cases of people with extraordinary memories and those with memory impairments, and information on how the mind processes memories.

Turns out, we are geared to remember things more in a spatial manner than by rote memorization. The concept of a memory palace (probably more familiar to younger audiences from the show Sherlock) was a technique developed in ancient Greece, that utilized this notion of remembering things in a spatial context. You take a place you know well, say your childhood home, and you litter it with exotic images representing the things you want to remember. If you retrace your steps along the inner pathway, you should find the images where you left them and it will recall the item you were trying to memorize. The more outlandish the images you use, the more likely you are to retain the specific memory. show more

Another technique involved associating numbers with specific images, usually from 00 to 99. Each number is assigned a Person, Action, Object oriented sequence and you can mix and match parts of the numbers to remember more complex numbers. For example…. if the number 03 is Loki wearing a raven cloak, 21 is a knight jousting with a lance and 16 is Mario stomping a Goomba, you would take the person from the first number, the action from the second and the object from the third. To remember the number 032116 you would construct an image of Loki jousting with a Goomba. Memorable, huh?

Though Foer does not lay out complete instructions, you do get an idea of how to do some of the mnemonic techniques from reading this book. I have been able to put some of it to use already, using the memory palace (such a goofy name!) to place things and remember them. Several weeks later, I still can! Nothing short of astonishing for me, who remembers very little. show less

In a single year, author Joshua Foer went from being an average American with a typical memory recall, to becoming the US Memory Champion, breaking the American record of memorizing a random deck of cards in 1:40. Note that's one MINUTE and 40 seconds. Moonwalking with Einstein recounts his year of memory training interspersed with fascinating tidbits about the science of how the human brain works as well as stories of savants and people with unusual mental skills (the man who never forgot). This audiobook was entertaining from start to end and the finale - the US Memory Championships - was as tense and exciting as any major sports event. Surprisingly entertaining and fun. I even selected this for the Goodreads non-fiction award!

This book was a lot of fun to read. I didn't really know what to expect going in. The author uses a very conversational tone to make what could have been a dull subject fun to read about. He goes back and forth between talking about his own experience (first learning about, then preparing for, and finally competing in memory championships) and then presenting information about memory athletes (historical information and modern-day examples). He talks about techniques, and par for course, gives us enough information to understand how they work without quite enough for us to use them ourselves. (There are other books out there for that kind of information.) In the end, I felt a little better off, a little smarter for having read this book, while still having a good time reading it. I look forward to reading whatever Mr. Foer comes up with next.

There is something to be said about a journalist who goes the extra step and participates in the object of his interest and not merely report on it. Joshua Foer did just that -- and at a high level -- winning the US Memory Championship after a year of training. Previously, Foer had covered the national and international events (the Americans are not close to being competitive on the international forum).

Foer describes the tricks he used to memorize things such as decks of cards, face/name combos, and lists of random numbers. Most of the techniques he described I've heard before -- and they still don't make sense to me. Somehow, associating the unfamiliar with a familiar image is supposed to spark near-total recall, but I think I would have problems remembering the familiar images then. Foer contends that anyone can learn this technique however, and even if they don't compete on a national scale, they might impress people at a cocktail party (beginning by remembering all of their names).

Much of the book profiled stars in this competitive field, and discusses the history of the "sport." To me, this part of the book was a little on the dull side -- I just don't find the "sport" all that compelling. Foer's own experiences was the better story, and I was pleased to see his conclusion was something I suspected all along: there is little practical use in such exercises; and at the end of the day, one might recall the order of a deck of cards studied hours earlier, but forget show more where he put his car keys. Foer declined to defend his national championship on the simple basis that he has better things to spend his time on.

While Moonwalking with Einstein (the title taken from one of his mental images used in remembering) won't teach you how to be a mental superstar at work, amazing your boss with stunning powers of total recall on the most minute detail, Foer does do a good job putting it in perspective and suggesting how we might benefit from improving our own recollections. It was along this vein that he mentioned something I thought could use further elaboration -- perhaps I'll take a shot at writing a book myself expanding on this topic. show less

I picked this book up because I was curious about how to improve my own memory. I suffer from medical issues that make remembering stuff more difficult than the average person. This book turned out not to be a book to teach you specific ways to improve your memory, but was instead one journalist’s journey to do the same.

Foer became interested in memory training after covering a competition. It piqued his interest enough that he decided to go through a year of memory training with a coach, Ed Cooke, and become a competitor himself. It isn’t just about his own training though. Foer is a journalist, and he provides ample research material, including cases of people with extraordinary memories and those with memory impairments, and information on how the mind processes memories.

Turns out, we are geared to remember things more in a spatial manner than by rote memorization. The concept of a memory palace (probably more familiar to younger audiences from the show Sherlock) was a technique developed in ancient Greece, that utilized this notion of remembering things in a spatial context. You take a place you know well, say your childhood home, and you litter it with exotic images representing the things you want to remember. If you retrace your steps along the inner pathway, you should find the images where you left them and it will recall the item you were trying to memorize. The more outlandish the images you use, the more likely you are to retain the specific memory. show more

Another technique involved associating numbers with specific images, usually from 00 to 99. Each number is assigned a Person, Action, Object oriented sequence and you can mix and match parts of the numbers to remember more complex numbers. For example…. if the number 03 is Loki wearing a raven cloak, 21 is a knight jousting with a lance and 16 is Mario stomping a Goomba, you would take the person from the first number, the action from the second and the object from the third. To remember the number 032116 you would construct an image of Loki jousting with a Goomba. Memorable, huh?

Though Foer does not lay out complete instructions, you do get an idea of how to do some of the mnemonic techniques from reading this book. I have been able to put some of it to use already, using the memory palace (such a goofy name!) to place things and remember them. Several weeks later, I still can! Nothing short of astonishing for me, who remembers very little.

Cala Gobraith show less

A history of memorization and a how-to book (though for a better introduction to the techniques, I recommend Oddbjørn By's book Memo (in Norwegian or English)) through the journalist Joshua Foer's adventures in "mental athleticism". Draws the long historical lines of how culture used to depend only on internal memory - in people's minds, whereas today so much relies on external memory, in the form of books, etc. People forgot that after books became commonplace, to the extent that the theory that Homer's Iliad and Odysseus had the form that they did (repetitions, rhymes, etc.) because they had survived long as oral works was groundbreaking. Today it is people with memorization as a hobby who keeps that flame, calling themselves "mental athletes." I knew the basic of the person-action-object method, which is used to memorize numbers, but I learned something new about memorizing text: meaning vs. words. In real life meaning is most important and suffices, but in memory competitions exact wording and punctuation, etc. are essential, so competitors assign each word to a route and have systems of fixed associations for common, hard-to-visualize words, and use similar-sounding words for not so common ones. The book also contains an exposé of celebrity savant Daniel Tammet, who seems to have been a quite good mental athlete with standard techniques, but who at some point switched careers (and name) to become a best-selling author and exotic savant who among other things show more (inconsistently) feels numbers' color, shape, etc. Recommended. show less

A very enjoyable writing style and interesting subject on the importance of memory through history and in our lives. It was also an adventure for the author on how he was able to improve his own memory, and what it did and did not do for his own life.

The author covered the National Memory Championships one year, and ended up winning it the next, so clearly what those Championships measured could be learned. This book is the story of that learning.

the author mentions a few of the techniques he learned, but this is not a book to help the reader learn what he learned. It is a book that puts the use of memory in context, and follows his specific journey.

One of the things I found most fascinating was the insight into the Classical and Medieval mindset that the history of these techniques provides. There are specific historical works dating back to Cicero that show what the ancients did in a world in which books and the written word are relatively rare. For instance, since a "library" might have only a few books, particularly in the early Middle Ages, one would read the same books over and over - the written text being more an aide d'memoire than a new experience. And thus the lack of spaces between words in early texts was no barrier to reading, because the reader already knew what it said.
I plan to look up many of his cited classical and medieval sources to see what they say in their own words. I've never read Cicero, but this prompts me to.

Another technique for remembering has a physical place as the memory-jogger for the stories about that place. This was apparently a technique used by American Indians. So when whole tribes were moved from their ancestral lands, they lived in a new landscape, one without the same show more memory-jogging features of the old one. And so the stories were lost, because the places they describe were no longer part of their environment.

And, as a consequence of reading this, I have bought a book specifically about memory-enhancing techniques. It remains to be seen how much I get out of the experience. This is a book that gets me excited about reading its sources. This book is one I can recommend. show less

I've never considered myself to have a good memory. I'll remember places, directions and programming concepts, but can't remember a phone number of the name of someone I just met. This look into the competitive memory circuit around the world helped me put an image in my head of not just what's possible, but how people actually go about remembering 10,000 digits of pi. While I don't plan to exercise this muscle to the extent of people in this book, I do want to try using some of these concepts to put a few names to faces.

An interesting, fascinating, look at memory, and how we use it, construct it, manipulate it, and how it changes, and becomes altered through time. A journalistic journey through the competition of the memory championship (primarily the US championship, though he does discuss -- briefly -- his loss at the world championship). Much of the novel is in the vein of 'journalist finds weird subgroup and joins and undergoes a journey through their realm for a year and emerges victorious' and part of the novel is 'historic/history overview of memory and its relationship with us'.

The memory palace thing is nothing new to me (and nothing new to anyone whose read Cicero or the Hannibal [Hannibal the Cannibal, not the general] series). It's basically a construct we create in our mind so we can store more information than typically available. You can assign digits (binary codes like they do in the competitions - 10101111010010101, etc.) names/places, faces, decks of cards, etc. -- you just create an image per number/card/face/location/event/etc. and then assign it a place in your memory palace. Ex. King of Clubs could be Einstein, and you place him in the kitchen of the house you grew up in. To further quicken it, you can create combo's. So King of Clubs followed by Queen of Spades, you could create the mental image of Einstein (King of Clubs) dancing with Hillary Clinton (Queen of Spades) in the kitchen of your house, and then the next two cards would be placed in the next spot of show more your house as if you were walking through it.

An interesting look at memory. The book was a bit dry in places, but overall Joshua Foer is a good writer with a wry and witty side to him, self-deprecating in a few ways, that makes it a fun read, even if dry in spots. Definitely worth checking out. show less

Foer decided to write about the US Memory Championships. Who would have thought that those memory whizzes really aren't any smarter than the rest of us. They just have a lot of tricks to help them memorize. I'll never need to memorize the order of cards in a deck, but I will always remember the "to do" list he put in his memory house, and if nothing else, I'll have a vivid memory of that swimming pool filled with cottage cheese. Yes, at times the techniques were far beyond me, but I think I can remember what I need to get at the store now.

An insightful read that I'd imagine any psych major would have already been familiar with the mnemonic arts. Luckily I didn't know any of this! The author writes about his experience training to become a memory champion and details the how-tos and some historical and scientific background throughout - he strikes a nice balance and keeps the book fairly concise. I wish there were more scientific background on the fmri stuff, but I'll just have to find it myself. Take home messages were to be mindful, to become good at something it takes very deliberate, technique driven practice - never go into autopilot (autonomous) stage of learning and force yourself to be cognizant of what you're doing. Memory in practice will be employed on remembering people ( associate the sound of the name with crazy images) and maybe learn the standard number memorization method.

I am an unapologetic nerd, so this book fascinated me. Foer did a great job researching, and I enjoyed listening to this as a drove back and forth to work, running errands, and so on. It wasn't one I could listen to as I worked in the office, because I really needed to focus on what he said. I also got some great ideas I can use with my students. I was especially impressed that he became a competition-caliber memorizer. Who knew there was such a thing?

I saw this book on the 'New Book Shelves' at the library soon after seeing it get a favorable mention here on LibraryThing and decided to bring it home. I enjoyed Foer's book which is part history of memory, part exploration of what science has to tell us about how we remember, and part memoir of the year he not only explored the techniques of those who participate in Memory Championships but learned many of these memory techniques and entered the next year's competition himself. Like many of the others who have read the book I would recommend it.

Is it weird that this was a book all about memory, but now that I’m writing the review three weeks later, I only have vague recollections about it. I remember thinking a lot of it was really interesting, and even laughing out loud at some points. As a sucker for Men Doing Weird Things books (of which AJ Jacobs is king), and I loved that not only did Foer dive into the world of memory, he actually went far enough to compete in the National Memory Championships. That’s some journalistic clout! It also helped me understand why I can remember all the lyrics to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “It’s the End of the World as We Know It,” and “Ain’t Going Down (Till the Sun Comes Up)” but cannot for the life of me remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

Seriously. What did I eat?

Read my full review here: http://letseatgrandpa.com/2012/11/11/book-review-52-moonwalking-with-einstein-by...

An enjoyable memoir of the author's year covering, and then participating, in memory sports. Not that book to read if you're looking for useful details about the techniques he employs, but there's still a good deal of interesting information and a fun story to hang it on. The audiobook, a few mispronunciations aside, is well-read.

Joshua Foer was a journalist covering the national memory championships when he got hooked on the idea of bettering his own memory. His book Moonwalking with Einstein is both a review of memory tricks throughout history and the story of his own efforts to train himself to remember things better-- to the point of entering the memory championships as a competitor. This fascinating, funny, and very informative book isn't designed to be a self-help book that will teach you to remember things better. But you will. The tricks that Foer discusses are easy enough to learn, although most of us won't need to know how to memorize the order of 22 decks of cards. Recommended, even if you aren't looking to improve your memory.

Pros:
Well written and enjoyable even thought the main character, narrator and author at once kind of bugged me in a way that is hard to express.
I've actually enjoyed the fact that while the book contains many interesting characters with various, often contradictory, views on memory, learning etc. it tries to be objective and there is no subjective opinion of the author to be found. Its simply a collection of many facts, stories and views on a certain matter without providing reader with a opinion that he should accept (as I see often in this kind of literature).
The book mixes well raw information, stories of interesting characters and biographical element and the fact that author underwent a journey into the heart of a matter that he writes about makes it a very compelling read.

Cons:
Quite a lot of material is covered in many other books such, sometimes whole chapters are a condense version of different books, such as Mind of a Mnemonist.
I've personally find it somewhat odd that author focused wholeheartedly on the competitive element and absolutely did not try to apply these methods to his own life, job, learning process etc.
While I liked the objectivity of the book, I also felt like that the author did not delve deep enough to provide some unique insight about the matter, but I guess that it is just not that sort of a book and I respect it.

The good news is that anyone can train their memory to do amazing party tricks. The bad news is that remembering the small daily details like where you left your keys would take much too much attention & time using these techniques

This is pretty good. Foer uses his participation in the US Memory Championship to frame an investigation into what memory is and how it works. It's a fast read, with a handful of rather colorful characters and a fairly page-turning ending (even though you probably know the outcome if you've read any of the reviews). I particularly enjoyed the chapter where he describes how Ed Goode taught him the Memory Palace technique and invites the reader to participate. Good stuff!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and although it doesn't give a lot of specifics anybody with 1/2 a brain can find out more about the tools and more step by step instructions. So if you are looking for a “how-to” book, you probably won’t find this to be what you are looking for although you will still likely enjoy it.

Like anything else, it will take practice and the ability to think outside the box to find applications for the new skills being learned. I would encourage individuals and people who are interested in stuff like this to also do their own research. I have read some Tony Buzan books, and other books which reference things like Memory Palaces and Mind Mapping. Although I personally like the IDEA and the CONCEPT behind mind mapping, the ability to do things and see things in your mind and translate them onto paper are entirely different. I found then difficult because they actually took longer to put down on paper. My mind works quickly enough that the words and images go by to fast, and I cannot hold them in my "mind’s eye" as the author puts it long enough for it to be transposed. Mind mapping alone in your head is quite applicable and similar to the memory palaces described in the book. It's about engaging all of the individual parts of your brain and not relying on any one particular part.

The author does a great job of chronicling his journey from "absent minded" to "memory master" and does it in a thought provoking, genuine and captivating way. I show more would read this or at least listen to the audio book again if I didn't have 100's of other books to read. I think in some ways the paper book would have been a little faster to read, but the audio book made it easier to differentiate from when the author was speaking to when others were speaking. Would highly recommend this book though to anyone is interested in an introductory book on how memories are made and stored. show less

Easy read about the author’s journey through memory competitions, which are now the province of only a few (and dominated by Europeans) because it’s so easy for people to outsource their memories to writing and digital devices. There’s apparently only one real trick, the memory palace, which uses our profoundly good memories for places and striking images to remember everything else—names, numbers, anything can be assigned an image and placed in a memory palace, then accessed in order. In the course of his journey to win the American memory title, the author also apparently debunks a supposed savant, who really remembers things the same way everyone else can learn to do. Interesting, but I didn’t end up wanting to invest my own time in the creation of a memory palace.

A surprisingly good first work prompted by interest and competition in US memory championships. The section on the evolution of print and its effect on undermining the classical importance of memory is especially good. At times seems a little random as themes discussed tend to be in the order they come up during is study and preparation. (Otherwise very possibly a five rating. Eminently readable and fun.)

A fun, very readable book as long as you aren't expecting to pick up much info that you can apply yourself. Especially impressive when you consider that Foer was such a young, novice writer when starting the book.

I also wanted more brain science--more about these rare people who are brain injured or born with brain abnormalities yet have extraordinary memory talents.I have seen Foer described as a science writer but this book, with its numerous digressions, really is better categorized as a dive into humanities history. What gives this book its shape, maintaining reader interest, is Foer's year-long journey to the memory championships. I can imagine many readers, like me, skipped over some of the history digressions and read about the champion contest at the end.

Foer never promised a self-help book but I still expected to learn a little bit more about, say, how to learn foreign language vocabulary. We learn it's difficult to learn a poem but he never got back to the techniques the memory geeks apply in this area.

That being said, I had read about memory palaces before, notably in Spence's book about the Jesuit missionary in China, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. It's only now that I have a grasp on how the memory palace technique worked. So: Ricci placed Chinese characters in different nooks of his memory palace (though still leaved the question of how he memorized the stroke order of all these characters). I can at least attempt to use the memory exercises to remember show more names of people at meetings and social occasions. Perhaps even addresses and telephone numbers? All you have to do is associate a color and an image with a number or a pair of numbers .. show less

Awesome reading.

It is not an how-to manual to be a mnemonist, it describe the path that Joshua did in order to become the US memory champion.
It is a path full of insights, anecdotes and funny stories that help the reader understand the deep work behind a mnemonist.

I appreciate digressions about "savantism", interviews and all the research details reported.
Thanks Joshua.

When science journalist Joshua Foer went to the 2005 U.S. Memory Championship as an observer, little did he know then that just a year later, he would find himself competing in the finals as a mental athlete. "Moonwalking with Einstein" is the story of Foer's journey to learn the art of memory in a world dependent on both the printed and electronic word. After all, why should we bother with the science of remembering when information about everything is at our fingertips? With just the click of a mouse, we can have the answers instantaneously.

Nevertheless, Foer makes the argument for the benefits of learning the science of remembering. This fascinating book blends the following together seamlessly: 1.) historical information, 2.) the science of memorization, 3.) anecdotes, and 4.) Foer's personal narrative as he sets out to compete in the U.S. memory championships. While the anecdotes were memorable, it was interesting reading about Foer's transformation from journalist to mental athlete. With a little bit of hard work, Foer proves that anyone can learn these techniques.

The Bottom Line: This is an easy read for anyone interested in the science of memory. The material is presented in a straightforward, easy-to-read fashion. While this is not a self-help book, Foer has included several techniques which can be learned by anyone to improve their ability to remember. However, these skills are not quick fixes; the techniques do take time to perfect. Recommended for those show more interested in memory and brain science. All in all, this book would make a great addition to college bound reading lists.

This review also appears at the Mini Book Bytes Book Review Blog: http://minibookbytes.blogspot.com/ show less

I've always been fascinated by the role memory plays in...well, being human. This book explores just that with an enjoyable mixture of history, philosophy, science, and personal experience with memory athletes (not to mention the author becoming one). Highly recommended. I'd like to say that I'll never forget this book, but, well, I know better. Good thing I will have my record of reading it stored on this "external memory system," Goodreads!

After having done some research into memory and memory training I went out looking for books on the topic. Crawling the internet quickly yielded many results, amidst them Foer's book; "Moonwalking with Einstein". It didn't take long before I had the book in my hands, and I immediately started reding it. I found the book to be a great read full of nice pieces of information, and good stories. The book is mainly written based on Foer's experiences but he wraps it nicely in some general science and scientific research done on the topic. It is surprisingly full of knowledge, but still highly readable for your average person; Foer makes it entertaining but at the same time educating to read.

All over a very good read :) 5 stars from me!

This highly readable book is partly an explanation of how memory works and how we can improve our memories with techiques and practice. This was interesting and practical.

It is also partly a memoir as author Joshua Foer spends a year preparing for the U.S. Memory Championship, an event where contestants compete in memorizing the order of a shuffled deck of cards, random numbers, word lists and names and faces. Joshua's interactions with other competitors and scientists provide an inside glimpse into this world.

An entertaining and educating read.

I thoroughly enjoyed Joshua Foer's tale of his trip to the US Memory Championship, what he discovered about remembering everything, and his opinions on the usefulness of memory skills in today's society where most memories are externalized.

This book delves into the history of memory – how it's been used throughout history, the study of it, etc. - and also the journey of the author as he goes from a man with an “average” memory to the U.S. Memory Competition. It was a very interesting, well written book by this first time author. While he went into detail on the subject matter of memory and how the brain works, it wasn't overly scientific (which is good since science is not my strong suit). However, I did find some parts a bit dry and repetitive and wish Foer would have gone more into his own journey with memorization. But overall, a good, insightful book on the use of memory both in our past and present times. NOTE: this is not a self-help book, and while there were tips on how the “experts” become to well at their memorization skills, this is not the book for you if you are looking to sharpen your own skills.

A fun book and good introduction to mnemonic techniques, but I found it to be more of an exercise in storytelling rather than a how-to of remembering everything.

This book has some great takeaways for how our memories and minds work, as well as how we can better employ them to get wanted results regarding memory. However, the majority of the book is comprised of case studies ranging from brain injuries and memory loss, to how a professional's mind works in their field of profession, and memory competitions. These are all interesting studies, but if the reader wants to learn more about how to improve their own functions, they will not get much of that here. That being said, the first step in mastering or changing anything begins with a better understanding of the thing, and this book does accomplish that.

This book was a fun and interesting read, not to mention made easy by a journalist's hand rather than that of a PhD.

One thing that it was lacking in was that the memory techniques are more suited for males.....heavy in visual and many with a sexual basis. I understand how visualizing helps, but men and women's brains along with how they process stimuli differ.....men are more visual. I didn't really notice this until towards the end of the book and when the memory palace was being introduced, but it raised awareness of a short-coming. Perhaps it's more of a spark of interest to find more in-depth books on the subject rather than a short-coming, but it still would have been nice for someone to catch that discrepancy so that an honorable mention could have been made, therefore steering the reader in the right direction to gaining show more more information.

Still, overall it was an interesting read. show less

I thought it was pretty inconsistent, between the interesting medical anomalies and the less-compelling "training" vignettes. There were some excellent passages and quotes, but ultimately I was more than ready to finish it by the conclusion.

Entertaining read of how a journalist covers the US memory championships, and decides to enter the contest himself. With interesting digressions on - amongst other things - how our memory works and on savants. His stab at Daniell Hammette (Born on a Blue Day) seems a bit unfair, but otherwise I enjoyed this. As light a read on the human brain and our memory function as you're ever going to find.

A fun and easy read which may profoundly influence how you attempt to memorize things in your life. I have, since reading it, taught my students to create their own memory palaces and it has given us all a chance to store things in a new way. Of course, I wish I was a Foer and could get paid to take a year to just memorize! :)

I would tell you all the reasons I wasn't overly impressed with this book, but I have forgotten the reasons. Just kidding, it was a decent book, but it certainly dragged on.

I personally would only suggest this book to people who have never read another book on memory or memory competitions before. If you have read other memory related books, this one could be a bit of a snooze.

As someone with an atrocious memory, it was very interesting to read about the subject. Definitely made me want to try some of the techniques even though I got the distinct impression that in the end, they're not very practical in everyday life. I found the writing very good and the research impressive, but in some parts I got the sense that he did take sides early on and his take was a bit slanted about some issues. Still, a good read.

A very interesting book on mnemonics, and easy to get through. I read it because I thought it might help me with learning languages and studying for the GRE. Foer does a good job explaining the art of the memory palace -- I learned about it in college but it was a more convoluted explanation. Definitely something that can be employed but not without hard work!Some pages I skipped because he tended to explain too much about himself (he was training for the US memory championships)and I was less interested in his frustrations.

Joshua Foer tells a gripping story about his year in pursuit of the perfect memory. The history of memory and the various experts and savants is fascinating. His story also has numerous tricks and tips that are incredibly helpful to those of us that are "memory challenged." I only wish that I had learned of these methods a couple of decades ago.

Fascinating story, a hugely enjoyable read. Feels a bit like an extended magazine article (which is understandable given the background) but a deeply interesting meditation on memory.

This is such an interesting book!
Joshua Foer is a science reporter who went to the 2005 US Memory Championship in order to write about it. He met several memory champs who assured him that anyone could do what they do and he set off to train to compete in the memory championship himself. This book tells about his year of memory training and the interesting people who he met as part of his research including the man who inspired the movie "Rainman" and a man who could not remember anything for longer than a minute or two. Joshua presents his research in an easy to read and interesting way. I learned a lot from this book. I had never before heard of chicken sexing and would not have imagined that it had any connection with being a chess master, but now I know these things. You can too if you read this book.
I was also fascinated with the way that writing and reading has evolved over the years. Joshua shares some memorization techniques that he used and that can be helpful to students who need to memorize material for school. Unfortunately, these techniques won't help us to remember daily things like where we left the car keys or why we opened the refrigerator.
I have to return this book to the library, but I am so impressed with it that I may buy myself a copy of it to re-read and refer to and I plan to read more about memory and how it works.

This book is sorely needed in our society today. Memory has become deprecated. Look around you. Most people you see probably have wires coming out of their ears. They only require a tiny bit of brain to process auditory input. The rest is supplanted by Google.

Using the memory techniques described in this book won't make your post-it notes obsolete. They are just too easy to use. But as the author suggests, they will make you more mindful of the world around you, and as memory expert Tony Buzan suggests, they'll make you more creative, to boot.

I like the premise, but the author spends very little of the book on his experience with improving his memory. He gets bogged down in the history; almost like he did way more research than was necessary but still wanted to share what he learned. I would have liked to hear more about his year of training, with the history scattered throughout.

3.5

I enjoyed this book. It inspired me to begin some very basic memory training on my own. The book did drag in certain parts, but overall it was an interesting mix of the history of memory training/mnemonics, techniques, and memoir of the author's attempt to compete in the U.S. Memory Championships. I also enjoyed the author's writing style and appreciated the bibliography, endnotes, and index.

I thoroughly enjoyed Joshua Foer's tale of his trip to the US Memory Championship, what he discovered about remembering everything, and his opinions on the usefulness of memory skills in today's society where most memories are externalized.

Yesterday I watched Joshua Foer's TED Talk and I was intrigued enough to read his book in two days (btw, he is the brother of Jonathan Safran Foer).

This is not a self-help book but it is strongly motivating: I've already bought a poetry pocket-book and started to learn poetry by heart applying some techniques learned from the author himself or from various 'mind masters' I encountered in his stories. My old friend from school days - my Memory - is feeling alive and useful again :)

A fascinating read about improving your memory and memory championships. The brain is pretty incredible.

We remember things in context. The more associative hooks something has the more embedded it gets into the network of things you already know and the more likely it is to be remembered. The brain is better at remembering if there are visual cues / images. Chunking can also assist (e.g. 0291852719 vs 029 185 2719).

Use spacial memory to remember things (i.e. memory palaces). An example:
1. Think of your family home, an area you are intimately familiar with.
2. Place the objects you want to remember at locations along a route in the home (start at driveway then front step etc).
2a Remember each object multi-sensory (location, sounds, smells). Deeply process image. Try and make it amusing (this makes it more vivid).
3. Retrace steps.
4. If you retrace steps again later in the day, in a week or will even further ingrain this into memory.

Remembering numbers can be done with the Major system created by Johann Winckelmann through replacing numbers with phonetic sounds that can then be constructed as a word freely interdispersed with vowels (i.e. 0 as S, 1 as T or D, 2 N, 3 M, 4 R, 5 L, 6 Sh or Ch, 7 K or G, 8 F or V, 9 P or B), therefore 32 could be man, 86 a fish, 7879 a coffee cup which you can then place in your memory palace.

A mindmap can be considered a type of memory place that helps you organise ideas into common areas.

I personally would have preferred a book that show more jumped straight into techniques to adopt as opposed to a book talking about the great memory of numerous people, memory championships and our physiology. Chapters 5 and 8 are where I found the most practical content.

3.5/5 show less

Foer uses several examples of how these mnemonic techniques work, and compares/contrasts them to those few people who have unexplained super-memory because of brain damage or brain syndromes. He investigates and includes stories about several people who have such syndromes and are able to do amazing things with their memories, or in some cases, can't remember anything after a few seconds: i.e. they can't develop long-term memories.

Joshua Foer participates in the U.S. memory competition, being trained by one of the top Mental Athletes, as they are called.

Several mnemonic techniques are explained and shown through example. It may be a jump between some of these techniques and real-world application of them, but many can be used immediately in "the real world."

It was a fun read/listen, and if you're interested in the memory, memory competition, mnemonics, memory palaces, or anything like that, I recommend this book. Even if you've read Tony Buzan, Harry Lorayne, Gary Small, Cicero, and others' books on memory, this is a new view on an ancient topic.

Enjoy.

The most interesting thing about the memory feats the author describes with an insider's view is that not too long ago, these kinds of memory feats were much less unusual among the educated classes. It is nice to think that with a bit of self-application anyone could train themselves to learn the trick of memorizing long digit strings and poetry. I think this story might make an entertaining film, given the characters described.

I wanted to like this more than I did.
I was hoping for more of a how-to and less of an invitation into the exceedingly weird world of memory champions. More organic and useful, less of freakish stunt-memory feats.

I wanted to like this more than I did.
I was hoping for more of a how-to and less of an invitation into the exceedingly weird world of memory champions. More organic and useful, less of freakish stunt-memory feats.

I wanted to like this more than I did.
I was hoping for more of a how-to and less of an invitation into the exceedingly weird world of memory champions. More organic and useful, less of freakish stunt-memory feats.

I wanted to like this more than I did.
I was hoping for more of a how-to and less of an invitation into the exceedingly weird world of memory champions. More organic and useful, less of freakish stunt-memory feats.

Me ha parecido interesante por el tema de los palacios de la memoria, que es por lo que lo cogí de la biblioteca; la parte personal, que es el hilo conductor del ensayo, es entretenida dentro de lo que cabe.

Wonderful read. I was introduced via NPR and could not wait to read it. It did not let me down. I feel that I am more capable of remembering the things that I want to remember and it made me want to dig further.

While I expected to be informed of this secret key to memory (and to some degree I did), I did learn that with all secret keys, there is work involved! I have been working on it ever since... fun book. Remember to read it!

A book seemingly about memory that turns out to be about that nature of expertise and deliberate practice in the hands of a focused individual.

Fascinating stuff about the history of memory and its relationship to the written word. The case studies alone make it worth reading.

It won't teach you how to remember, but the bibliography has a nice list of books to choose from.

Well-written, funny, interesting, fun read, an expansion of a magazine article a la Malcolm Gladwell.

I think I just expected more from this book. Though it was interesting reading about the memory competition I expected more details about how to improve one's memory (hoping to use it for my husband)and I think there was only one such exercise in the book. It was very readable and parts were very interesting but after a while it tended to drone on and I lost interest.

Really interesting book about his exploits trying to compete in the US and International Memory Contests. Very enjoyable read by a good writer.

Who knew? Isn't brain science interesting? Foer was so funny when he started really worrying about how geeky the pursuit of hyper-memory was (while he was living in his parent's basement). Now why in the world don't they teach this in school? It would make the whole educational experience much, much less dreary.

Found this book a fascinating retelling of the author's attempt to become the U.S. Memory Champ. Foer gives us a glimpse into the lives of the people competing in these Memory Championships as well as a look at the science of memory and the importance of memorization in the past and present.

This is a great book to read if your an ambitious college student (or better yet, in high school), interested in nueroscience or psychology, or just looking for an enlightening and entertaining book on the history of memory, one journalist's (Joshua Foer) rabbit-hole trip into the world of mnemonics and the world memory championships.

This book is a wonderful book if you are interested in figuring out techniques for improving your memory. It is a good introduction into the subject, but not extensive enough for those that want to seriously train their memory for competition. Moonwalking with Einstein is a cross between a story of Josh's journey to improve his memory for the USA Championship and the techniques involved in improving your memory.

It is easy reading with good introductory ways to improve memory. Some of the techniques include memory palaces, image memory vs. words, and ways to convert written text to images that you can recall.

Not a book I'd normally read but I found it interesting. The author chronicles his year or so first reporting on the US Memory championship, then preparing and participating in the event. Easy-to-read style but a little heavy on details.