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Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Joshua Foer (Goodreads Author)

3.88 · Rating details · 74,515 ratings · 5,742 reviews

The blockbuster phenomenon that charts an amazing journey of the mind while revolutionizing our concept of memory

An instant bestseller that is poised to become a classic, Moonwalking with Einstein recounts Joshua Foer's yearlong quest to improve his memory under the tutelage of top "mental athletes." He draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of remem ...more

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Hardcover, 307 pages

Published March 3rd 2011 by Penguin Press HC, The

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Start your review of Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Aug 14, 2012 Steve rated it liked it

Here’s the hook. Suppose you want to commit the items on your to-do list to memory because you don’t have a pencil and paper. The first five items on your list are:

1. Buy a bottle of Bordeaux for tonight’s dinner party
2. Put Trainspotting at the front of the Netflix queue
3. Finish the office TPS reports before the weekend
4. Pick up the copy of The Master and Margarita that’s on hold at the library
5. Check the Haile Selassie wiki entry to see if the account of the attempted coup in Cutting for St

...more

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Mar 05, 2011 J rated it did not like it

Unimpressive - This is a great example of how misleading a book title can be. I'd give it one and a half stars but it is just not worth two.

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art & Science of Remembering Everything reads like a long magazine article - which is kind of where I found out about the book - The NY Times - last week. Having read the article, I was sufficiently impressed to get online and order the book. It arrived four days later and I couldn't wait to get started.

At the onset of his boo Unimpressive - This is a great example of how misleading a book title can be. I'd give it one and a half stars but it is just not worth two.

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art & Science of Remembering Everything reads like a long magazine article - which is kind of where I found out about the book - The NY Times - last week. Having read the article, I was sufficiently impressed to get online and order the book. It arrived four days later and I couldn't wait to get started.

At the onset of his book - which does have a snappy title - Foer was very clear this is not a 'how to' book but rather, it is an account of his one-year journey from being a journalist-spectator to becoming winner of the US Memory Championship. Maybe that's where I got off track. The NY Times article, detailed as it was, failed to mention that part. Its a critical detail - more than an oversight - in my estimation.

Foer has a decent writing style - again, like a magazine article. This book is written in the vein of Malcolm Gladwell's books and it does have information but not quite as polished or as jam packed. So far, hardly anything that wasn't already mentioned on the NY Times synopsis has been written and little has been added to what I already read so I am feeling just a little bit ripped off - the subtitle seems to imply that the book will talk about, "the art and science of remembering everything..." For the sake of accuracy, it should read; "My year-long journey toward becoming the US Memory champion with a few interesting tidbits about memory thrown in for good measure."

I'd give this book a grade of "B+" for style and an overall grade of "D" because it was not at all what it was hyped to be. The discontinuity between Foer's book title and its content are such that if I ever come across this writer's books again, I am going to be hard-pressed to trust him enough to plop down my hard-earned money because I will be less likely to fall for that trick twice.

Foer's synopsis on the NY Times deserves an "A" - moreover, since he failed to expand the book that's where the material should have stayed.

I am going to be recommending the NY Times synopsis - penned by the author and - which turns out to be $14.00 + shipping cheaper - not to mention, the article is (ironically) more directed at hard examples of just how memory techniques can be applied. I suppose if there is anything redeeming about Foer's book is its extensive bibliography.

Other than that, save your money and check this book out at your local library where you can also photocopy the bibliography because it will offer more detail germane to the topic. ...more

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Nov 29, 2011 Diane rated it really liked it

Shelves: memoirs, nonfiction

Ignore the ridiculous title. Forget the hideous book cover. This is a fun and interesting read once you get past those stumbling blocks. Joshua Foer was a journalist who wrote a story on the U.S. Memory Championship, and he became so intrigued by the chance to improve his memory that he spent a year training to become a "mental athlete."

The book covers his year spent learning about mnemonics and memory palaces and all of the memorable (ahem) characters he met along the way. My favorite sections ...more

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Dec 03, 2015 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography, 21th-century, non-fiction, memoir, psychology, self-help, science

Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything is a nonfiction book by Joshua Foer, first published in 2011.

Foer discusses how Daniel Tammet's index finger slides around on a table as he performs mental calculations in a documentary; mental multiplication experts and mnemonists that Foer speaks with imply that Tammet's claims, involving synesthetic morphing shapes and colors standing in for complex numerical feats, are questionabl ...more

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Jul 18, 2020 Dr Appu Sasidharan rated it really liked it

Throwback review
This is a book discussing the topic of memory in-depth written by 2006 USA Memory champion, Joshua Foer. These are some of the interesting topics discussed in this book.

Memory Athletes
Memory athletes compete in memorising information like that of names, decks of cards, random numbers, digits of pi. They compete in different memory competitions organised by International Association of Memory and World Memory Sports Council. The USA Memory Championship (USAMC) takes place ...more

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Jul 15, 2011 Richard Stephenson rated it liked it

Let me see if I have this right... pickled garlic, cottage cheese, Pete's Smoked Salmon, 6 bottles of champagne, 3 pairs of socks, hoola hoops, scuba diver in the sink, dry ice, send Sophia an email... I think I messed it up, but there's some simple proof that memory techniques *can* be useful.

Unfortunately, this book isn't about teaching memory techniques. It's about Josh's journey to winning the biggest little award in the US... which is NOT why I read this book.

Sure, the overall story was int ...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Trevor rated it liked it

Shelves: psychology, education

This wasn’t a bad book – I quite enjoyed some of it and the author sometimes had me laughing in the way you can’t help but laugh the first time you see the last scene of the very first Star Wars movie.

About twenty years ago I first came across Tony Buzan. I read a couple of his books and even learnt enough of his methods to be able to memorise an entire weekly shopping list and to go around the supermarket without paper. The problem was that I quickly came to the conclusion that ‘learning’ has ...more

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Oct 05, 2018 ☘Misericordia☘ ~ The Serendipity Aegis ~ ⚡ϟ⚡ϟ⚡⛈ ✺❂❤❣ rated it it was amazing

Deliberate/cognitive practice! Sounds just like Hank Moody's motto: 'Constant vigilance!'

Q:
The brain best remembers things that are repeated, rhythmic, rhyming, structured, and above all easily visualized. (c)
Q:
Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next - and disappear. That's why it's Deliberate/cognitive practice! Sounds just like Hank Moody's motto: 'Constant vigilance!'

Q:
The brain best remembers things that are repeated, rhythmic, rhyming, structured, and above all easily visualized. (c)
Q:
Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next - and disappear. That's why it's so important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives. (c)
Q:
The more we remember, the better we are at processing the world. And the better we are at processing the world, the more we can remember about it. (c)
Q:
There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. (c)
Q:
Psychologists have discovered that the most efficient method is to force yourself to type 10 to 20 percent faster than your comfort pace and to allow yourself to make mistakes. Only by watching yourself mistype at that faster speed can you figure out the obstacles that are slowing you down and overcome them. By bringing typing out of the autonomous stage and back under conscious control, it is possible to conquer the OK plateau. (c)
Q:
When the point of reading is, as it was for Peter of Ravenna, remembering, you approach a text very differently than most of us do today. Now we put a premium on reading quickly and widely, and that breeds a kind of superficiality in our reading, and in what we seek to get out of books. You can’t read a page a minute, the rate at which you’re probably reading this book, and expect to remember what you’ve read for any considerable length of time. If something is going to be made memorable, it has to be dwelled upon, repeated. (c)
Q:
Amateur musicians, for example, are more likely to spend their practice time playing music, whereas pros are more likely to work through tedious exercises or focus on specific, difficult parts of pieces. (c)
Q:
The brain is like a muscle,” he said, and memory training is a form of mental workout. Over time, like any form of exercise, it’ll make the brain fitter, quicker, and more nimble. It’s an idea that dates back to the very origins of memory training. Roman orators argued that the art of memory—the proper retention and ordering of knowledge—was a vital instrument for the invention of new ideas. (c) ...more

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Feb 14, 2013 Stephanie *Extremely Stable Genius* rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, 2013, brain

Cross posted atShelfinflicted

People do the oddest things in the name of winning.

I’m a competitive person (as are most of you reviewers out there). A few years ago I would have added the word “very” in front of competitive; I’ve mellowed as I’ve aged but I remember the lengths I went to in order to be the best at whatever I deemed important. But I’m fairly certain I would not go to such lengths to win a memory competition.

Joshua Foer thought it was a dandy idea…..

Joshua found himself in the worl Cross posted atShelfinflicted

People do the oddest things in the name of winning.

I’m a competitive person (as are most of you reviewers out there). A few years ago I would have added the word “very” in front of competitive; I’ve mellowed as I’ve aged but I remember the lengths I went to in order to be the best at whatever I deemed important. But I’m fairly certain I would not go to such lengths to win a memory competition.

Joshua Foer thought it was a dandy idea…..

Joshua found himself in the world of competitive memory when he decided he wanted to do a journalistic book about the subject and the people in it. Apparently, and I didn’t know this, there is a world competition for memory. These people memorize long lists of numbers, decks on top of decks of cards, poetry….ect, all to repeat what they remember to some judges in hopes of winning. My question was why? What purpose could this possibly serve? Who needs a skill like this and when would one have the need to memorize 20 decks of cards?

As the author points out in the book, we no longer need to remember much of anything these days, all our electronic gadgets serve as our external memory. When was the last time you memorized a phone number? Pretty close to “a really flippin long time ago” I would guess.

To accomplish the mind boggling feet of, say, memorizing the order of cards in many set of cards in just minutes, they use the technique called mnemonics. What this is, is making a visual backdrop for each card, or number, or object and putting them in ‘memorable’ situations doing strange things……and apparently the raunchier the better. Trust me you don’t want to know what his mind had conjured up for Bill Clinton and a Watermelon, but I will never forget it.

Competition got the better of Foer, and he went from writing a book about memory competitors to being a competitor himself. He wanted the American memory championship bad! So bad he resorted to wearing blacked out goggles with small holes in them to see whatever he studying and to wearing earmuffs to minimize distractions. That's dedication.
...more

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Sep 05, 2020 Ammar Bassa rated it it was amazing

This book has motivated me more than any other memory improvement book I'd read before. Maybe because it's positively theoretical and focuses on how to stay motivated through the whole process. It was a great another story of success.

Care to practice your super-memory... https://amzn.to/32yJPAJ ...more

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Mar 06, 2011 Oriana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2012

Well, I'm not going to lie, this book has already got two strikes: I basically hate the genre of "I did this wacky thing for a year, and then I wrote a book about it!", plus he is the brother of a famouser writer whom I more or less revile. But! OMG you guys, my memory is so laughably bad. And apparently this book might possibly have a side effect of helping me improve that, which would be worth slogging through a middling memoir.

***

Here's another book I'm sad I never found time to review. It wa ...more

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Jul 20, 2011 Angie rated it really liked it

Shelves: kindle-clubbers, recommended-non-fiction

Joshua Foer begins exploring memory at the US Memory Competition, where he watches people who claim to have normal memory capacity memorize lists of phone numbers, the order of decks of cards, and poems in mere minutes. Intrigued, he eventually decides to compete in the competition himself and receives help from leaders in memory techniques along the way.

Foer weaves his experience in memory training with research and a history of the practice. With a casual, story-telling style he takes you on a ...more

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Dec 21, 2017 Simon Eskildsen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reread

This is a book review turned rant. I often hear 'good memory is useless with technology' or 'memory techniques are tricks, but wouldn't add value to my life'. I think both of these are wrong. I've been spending this Christmas understanding more about memory because I think there's significant leverage in being productive with these techniques.

I have varies situational checklists. If I am about to buy something, I ask myself simple questions such as "Would I buy this again if it broke?", "Have I This is a book review turned rant. I often hear 'good memory is useless with technology' or 'memory techniques are tricks, but wouldn't add value to my life'. I think both of these are wrong. I've been spending this Christmas understanding more about memory because I think there's significant leverage in being productive with these techniques.

I have varies situational checklists. If I am about to buy something, I ask myself simple questions such as "Would I buy this again if it broke?", "Have I wanted this for more than a month?", "Does this replace something I already have, or does it add a new need?" and "If I get this, will I have to resist the urge to get 10 other things to go along with it?". I have checklists for making decisions: "What would change my mind about this decision?", "What alternatives have been seriously considered?" and "What can we do to get our feet wet, without jumping in heads first?". I have lists of the mental models, principles and cognitive biases that I use on most problems I face: inversion, second-order effects, black swans, survivorship bias, antifragility, conditioning, fundamental attribution error, and so on. I have a 20+ point checklists for reviewing code.

The problem with these lists is that they're stored in an app on my phone. I only run through them on occasion, despite finding value every time I do. It's difficult to condition myself to use them as often as I'd like. In the middle of a discussion, it's disruptive to pull up a list on your phone and work through it. With a memory palace, I can install these checklists in my head to run through at any point in time.

I've started doing this since reading the book and it's provided the impetus to finally adopt memory palaces into my day-to-day. I don't have many of them yet, in fact, the only one is a subset of my list of mental models, principles, and biases. I've built this on a couple of streets in the city I grew up in. I start the memory palace in the parking lot of my kindergarten. There, I see a bunch of people doing headstands. It reminds me to attempt to invert the problem. On the sidewalk, I see a bunch of domino pieces falling. This prompts me to consider second-order and third-order thinking. I look over the fence, inside the kindergarten. There's a tall, blue tower and I see a monkey throwing carrots. That means I should think about what the incentives are in the problem at hand. Do the incentives of the systems line up with those of the individuals? I keep walking and see a massive, exponentially shaped slide, thinking of compounding. Soon enough a black swan jumps out, causing me to think of Taleb's black swan. I see clocks on the pavement and I think of whether everyone is operating on the same time-scale, or if the disagreement is formed because some are thinking on a 1-month time-scale, and others on a 1-year time-scale? I see a barbell, think of antifragility. A plane, and think of survivorship bias. I have about 20 mental models and biases incorporated in this model so far.

This may seem slow, but in fact, I'd be able to name all of the models in seconds. It's extremely fast to run through this list. Adding new models is only getting easier, too.

Remembering numbers and card games isn't particularly useful for me, but these are just easy-to-evaluate tests for a competition format to test how productive someone is with memory palaces. They don't do the techniques justice. As you use these techniques more and more, it becomes easier to form mental images to build palaces. I'm only a week in, and I'm already building small palaces for the books I'm reading and vocabulary I'm currently learning. This makes it easy to go through it when you aren't reading the book.

Fundamentally, as a result of reading this book and other resources on memory, I've come to think of a brain as a data structure with the following strengths:

* Great at building associations
* Extremely visual and spatially oriented
* Good at appending, poor at updating, mediocre at recall

Boiling memory down to these limitations makes it easier for me to understand why palaces are so useful. The brain is poor at lists and numbers unless packaged into visual, spatial and associations—for which the memory palace is a fantastic technique. If you think of building memories in terms of these strengths, it makes a dramatic difference.

I like the book because it has a compelling narrative. The problem with it is that it doesn't go deep enough into how to use memory day-to-day, despite my hypothesis that it is useful in day-to-day life. Adopting these techniques is hard work, don't read the book if you don't see any use for it. But if you do, this is a fantastic place to start. Something I found incredibly surprising is that we used to be much better at remembering than we are now. In ancient greece, they had perfected these techniques to remember. Before the printing press, getting your hand on a book was rare. When you did, you made sure to memorize as much of it as possible. With Gutenberg, we had the first wave of suppressing the importance of memory. The second wave came with smartphones and the Internet, where everything seems to be just seconds away. I certainly agree that this changes things in terms of what we need to remember, but I feel that strategically applying these techniques would yield great results. I look forward to see if I'm still using them months and years from now. ...more

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Apr 29, 2013 midnightfaerie rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

Moonwalking with Einstein was a phenomenal book that made me feel differently about myself. An average student growing up, I still felt I was a step behind everyone when it came to "getting stuff". So I made a point to know things ahead of time, go over itinerary for conventions, review code and new techniques for a meeting before the meeting or seminar happened, memorize rules and lists for activities in which I belonged to in a group, etc. Because of this I was often seen as being in the "top Moonwalking with Einstein was a phenomenal book that made me feel differently about myself. An average student growing up, I still felt I was a step behind everyone when it came to "getting stuff". So I made a point to know things ahead of time, go over itinerary for conventions, review code and new techniques for a meeting before the meeting or seminar happened, memorize rules and lists for activities in which I belonged to in a group, etc. Because of this I was often seen as being in the "top of the class" or "In the know", but the truth was I was terrified of looking stupid, a particular insecurity of mine. As I got older I learned to live with my strengths and weaknesses, but some of those habits are still around. I'm convinced my obsession with reading comes from this insecurity as well. The problem is, like the old adage says, the more I read, the more I know, and the more I know, the more I realize I really don't know anything. And then there's the whole retention rate. How much of what we digest do we really retain? Then one of my book clubs suggested this book about world memory championships and I was fascinated.

Like most, my first thought was that these people that memorize numerous decks of cards or numbers that are twenty thousand digits long have innate abilities or are savants of sorts. But Foer shows us this isn't necessarily true. In fact, he's convinced many people that are labeled special or savants are just normal people that have utilized these age old memorization techniques. I was hooked. Is it possible that I could be retaining even more information? That I could make myself (at least feel) smarter? I was determined to find out.

Foer is a journalist that just happens to stumble on the memory championships and decides to train for a year and compete, to test his theories. This book is both eye-opening and thought provoking. Is it possible we've been teaching our children the wrong way to learn in schools? How do the experts in certain fields learn what they do? How is it that they show super human like abilities in analyzing and understanding their fields? In science? In chess? In cricket? Foer explores the many different memory techniques that have become standard for these memory sports. He also researches the whole idea of human memory at the same time. He gets tested himself before and after he starts training, he talks to scientists and psychologists who have studied this field for years and looks at various case studies that have been done over the years. He interviews people with various memory deficiencies/abilities, from world renown savants to a man who can't retain any information longer than it takes to concentrate on it.

Foer does an exceptional job with looking at both sides of the issues, but keeping an open mind all the way up until the end. His struggles and humorous imagery he uses for some of his techniques stay with you long after you've read the book. As I read the book and began to learn some of these techniques, I immediately began to employ them. The lady at the library that I asked three times what her name was, my grocery list, the names and interests of the twenty or so families that I've recently come to know in my church group. I employed techniques for all of these and was surprised to find how quickly the information came to me when trying to recall them. I've chosen a memory palace and have decided to memorize a small book I use for reference all the time called, "Know your Bible: All 66 books explained and applied". I use it constantly to look up the name of the book or the general idea of the book of the Bible I'm studying. I also wanted to memorize the names of the books of the Bible in order, as it makes for much easier referencing. So, I keep this book next to my bed, and have begun using my childhood home as my memory palace, forming imagery as I walk through my house to retain the information. This is a popular technique Foer explains in the book, especially when memorizing lists of concrete things, like a grocery list. It's working wonderfully. The more obnoxious or silly the image, the easier it is to retain the information. I won't go into each scene, but I will say some of my scenes include the Oompla Loompas, Professor Dumbledore, and talking French Peas. (Not all in the same scene though)

I found the history of some of these techniques fascinating as well, especially the sexual aspect of it. As you can imagine, lewd and obscene sexual acts might come in handy in forming imagery to remember things, and it was because of this, at some point in history it was sometimes banned as being immoral. In demonstrating to the reader the technique of using the memory palace to memorize a grocery list, he used an image of Claudia Shiffer covered in cottage cheese. He described the clumps of it falling off of her and asked the reader to imagine the smell of it. Many days later, I still can't get that image out of my mind, and will have no problem if I ever need to remember cottage cheese on my shopping list. But, with much humor, Foer also demonstrates the down side to sometimes using sexual acts to remember. For remembering playing cards he needed to remember a person, action, and item for each card, then (without going into too much description) as the cards are shown in a particular order, you have these people, items, and acts/verbs mixed up to form new images. He made the mistake of including some sexual acts as some of the verbs and his mother as one of the people. You can see how this got him into trouble. He ended up having to go back and change some of his image decisions or endure some mental scarring.

All in all though, are these techniques enough to really help us retain information or are they just fancy tricks that really have no real world use? Does memorizing your address book really matter when you can't remember where you put your car keys? Well, that's for you to decide. But Foer does an excellent job of exploring all sides of this entertaining phenomenon. And I highly recommend this book.

ClassicsDefined.com ...more

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Mar 10, 2011 Grumpus rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Arminius

Shelves: audiobook, miscellaneous

I love his style of writing...fun and chatty. Nice introductory chapters and a technique I learned while listening on the train (for half an hour) that allowed me to come home and impress my kids by having them write down a 50-digit number and then me recalling it digit-by-digit in order for them.

I never thought about it before, but the book points out that before pen and paper, anything that needed to be preserved had to be memorized. That is why so many of the techniques mentioned in the book ...more

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Mar 24, 2011 Elyse Walters rated it really liked it

I'm an expert mnemonicist now! Ha ha.

This book is a fast read..(funny, somewhat interesting, somewhat useful)

June: 2015... 4 years later: i've come back to change my rating from 2 stars to 4 stars

This book actually is brilliant I remember it quite well. It didn't deserve 2 stars. The ending is actually very touching. My reason for giving it 2 stars four years ago is I didn't think I personally was very good at the techniques in the book.

This book came to my attention today from another friend ...more

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Jun 20, 2011 David rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Chicken sexers, chess masters, SWAT officers, people with bad memories

Shelves: non-fiction, science, psychology

What do chicken sexers, chess masters, and SWAT officers have in common? They all become good at what they do by memorizing a vast amount of highly specialized information that allows them to make instant judgments. Moonwalking with Einstein is about memory, and is the most interesting non-fiction book I've read in the past year. It's full of interesting facts, a history of the art of memory and how it relates to the history of reading, and a lot of surprising information I did not know about ho ...more

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Nov 15, 2016 Clif Hostetler rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: health-and-selfhelp

This book explores technics that can be utilized to remember things. It's not a "how to" book, but rather it's an account of a year in the author's life dedicated to the training in the use of mnemonics to change from being a person with "normal" memory to winner of the USA Memory Championship. The basic point seems to be that you don't need to have a good memory to remember things. What's needed is to use the human brain's natural abilities at remembering images as a means to remember the esote This book explores technics that can be utilized to remember things. It's not a "how to" book, but rather it's an account of a year in the author's life dedicated to the training in the use of mnemonics to change from being a person with "normal" memory to winner of the USA Memory Championship. The basic point seems to be that you don't need to have a good memory to remember things. What's needed is to use the human brain's natural abilities at remembering images as a means to remember the esoteric things of today such as telephone numbers, names of strangers, and in the case of memory championships, the order of a shuffled deck of playing cards.

Humans are descended from a long line of hunter gathers who needed to remember where to find food and how to find their way back home. Thus the ability to remember numbers or names of strangers did not play a role in natural selection. That is why today we have minds that can remember images better than we can remember numbers and names. Mnemonics is the technic of utilizing the human brain's natural strength as a means for helping those areas where the brain is naturally weak.

As the book's narrative follows the author's year of mnemonic training it addresses miscellaneous facts about the history of memorization technics, examples of unusual memory abilities, and miscellaneous neurological facts. So the reader of this book can learn some worthwhile facts of history and science which I found to be of more interest than the author's work at mnemonic training.

I feel sorry for any readers who pick up this book with the expectation that it is about Einstein. I went through the whole book and didn't recall any reference to Einstein. So I did a word search of the ebook text and found the word Einstein mentioned two places. One place in the author's training he mentions that he uses the imagined image of "Albert Einstein's thick white mane" as a way to remember the playing card, "three of diamonds." Then later in the book after the author has developed a system of images to remember all possible three card combinations, the word "Einstein" is used again. Under this enhanced system, "Myself moonwalking with Einstein," stands for, "four of spades, king of hearts, and three of diamonds."

The author admits that even though he is able to memorize the order of a deck of cards in less than two minutes, he still can't remember where he left his car keys. ...more

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Jan 03, 2012 David rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobook, nonfiction, psychology, memoirs

This is a fascinating book about the subculture of memory competitions. Joshua Foer, a journalist, decided to explore this subculture by attending competitions and talking with a number of the competitors. He relates some of the astounding feats of memory, like reciting 50,000 or even 80,000 digits of pi. He interviews Kim Peek, about whom the film Rain Man was written. Kim Peek really has the mental abilities portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the movie, but is much more sociable (maybe even overly ...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Ellie rated it really liked it

Shelves: bio-memoir, education, american, 2012-individual-challenge, non-fiction

I enjoyed Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer. I guess I just wanted it to be more...life-changing. And I resented its movement between a theoretical examination of memory, a history of memory and memory techniques, and the author's experience with a group of hard-core champions of memory contests.

The author happens upon the world of memory training in which people perform amazing feats of memory and claim that their memory is only average, th I enjoyed Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer. I guess I just wanted it to be more...life-changing. And I resented its movement between a theoretical examination of memory, a history of memory and memory techniques, and the author's experience with a group of hard-core champions of memory contests.

The author happens upon the world of memory training in which people perform amazing feats of memory and claim that their memory is only average, that we could all (pretty much) do what they do if we trained ourselves. The book is a recounting of Foer's year training with the experts to compete in memory championships. Along the way, Foer recounts the history of memorization-its one-time primacy, its fall into disrespect and its current championship by some educators. He has some fascinating stories to tell and raises some interesting questions as well.

Before writing, memory was the only way to transmit information, culture, and history. Even after writing was invented and became common, even, in fact, after the printing press was invented, books were (Foer informs us) more of a memory aid than a source of information. As books became more sophisticated, it became easier to access the information they contained and gradually at first, then, with the advent of the Internet, extremely quickly, memory no longer seemed important. Foer raises an important question: Although memory does not constitute understanding, facts are an essential foundation to learning. As a teacher, I find myself defending the need to memorize a sets of basic facts so that the students can then proceed to think about them and analyze them.

Stories about individuals whose memories have been damaged along with stories of "savants" were of more interest to me for the questions they raised about the function of memory in forming our identity and as a necessary constituent of relationships than for their anecdotal pleasure.

Generally, my dissatisfaction with the book came from what is also its major attraction: a lot of information is covered in a relatively short space. In fact, not just a lot of information, but a lot of different areas-history, education, psychology-along with the current tale of Foer's training and the people he meets along the way. The book left me dissatisfied in that it didn't seem to offer a coherent starting point for further investigation because of the rapidity with which it covered so many important issues.

On the other hand, I was fascinated by much of the book and will spend time trying to sort out the questions it raised and decide where to go next with it. And that's a great thing for a book to do.

...more

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Nov 17, 2013 Carmen rated it liked it

Recommends it for: People interested in memory

Shelves: traditionally-published, he-says, non-fiction

This was a book about a man who learns to improve his memory in order to compete in the memory competition. The book talks a lot about creating 'memory palaces' in your mind in order to remember things. One thing that really annoyed me about this book was the sheer amount of time and effort these people put into memorizing useless stuff when I struggle so much with foreign language acquisition. This book also teaches that one should 'practice better, not harder.' Also, their methods of memorizat ...more

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Jun 16, 2020 Mehrsa rated it really liked it

I've been meaning to read this book since I first read Foer describe the concept of the memory castle in a magazine article with the book's release. Honestly, there isn't much more in here than that. I did love the emphasis on memorizing as learning--that's how I was taught in grade school in another country and I still get a lot of satisfaction for memorizing things. Although these days, I can't even remember a phone number for 3 seconds.

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Jul 18, 2011 Jim rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks-read, bill-gates-book-club

One more disk to listen to but I can safely review it now.

I listened to this as a flier thinking it to be a how to on Mnemonics. It's more of a participatory journalism book like the Omnivores Dilemma, The Wave, Born to Run and Word Freak. These books share a common formula. 1 Part History,1 Part Science, 1 Part Interview with Characters, 1 Part How to, 1 Part Essay and 1 Part Personal Quest: training and competing in the America Memory Championship which he entered on a lark.

I found it to be w ...more

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Oct 27, 2018 Tony rated it it was amazing

Wow. Seldom do I finish a book and feel it has changed who I am, or who I could be.

There are many areas here related to education which inspired me (most interestingly and somewhat removed slightly from memory of the concept of the ‘ok plateau’), and of which I must further research, but... the memory palace was extraordinary! I sat with my two daughters and we moved in just an hour from remembering 7 +/- 2 bits of info to 24. And could easily recount them the following day, even backwards!

Thos ...more

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Aug 02, 2012 Robert Delikat rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

I just realized that my last three books had to do with memory: Remembrance of Things Past, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Moonwalking with Einstein (MwE). It was certainly not intentional and the Proust was not really about memory per se, only the title suggests that. But MwE is all about memory.

If you are looking for a self-help book on improving your memory, you might wish to look elsewhere, perhaps something by Tony Buzan who is a very important character in MwE. This is not to I just realized that my last three books had to do with memory: Remembrance of Things Past, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Moonwalking with Einstein (MwE). It was certainly not intentional and the Proust was not really about memory per se, only the title suggests that. But MwE is all about memory.

If you are looking for a self-help book on improving your memory, you might wish to look elsewhere, perhaps something by Tony Buzan who is a very important character in MwE. This is not to suggest that the author does not elucidate many of the techniques used by MAs or Mental Athletes as the memory champions of the world are called. One might think that the individuals who compete at the national and international memory competitions are mentally-gifted or Savants. Not so. In fact, by definition, Savantism, as described in the literature, is that rare condition that, among other aspects of the syndrome, has as a commonality among its holders a prodigious memory that while very deep, is also exceedingly narrow. MAs on the other hand have memories that can, to name only a few, manage and regurgitate ordered lists of hundreds of random numbers, orders of multiple, shuffled decks of cards, poetry never before seen and all in a matter of a few short minutes. While these are but a few examples of the feats these athletes are capable of performing, there really are no limits to the subject materials they are capable of memorizing. And, as in the case of other forms of athletics, these require a similar kind and degree of training and conditioning.

In my studies as an educator, we learned theories about the kinds of student learning that takes place within us and particularly two and the one of which most of us have a particular proclivity for. We, for example, were taught that there are visual- and there are auditory-learners. I did not totally buy into that division and later on came to believe that even auditory learners, upon ‘hearing” the words, translate them into pictures, “seeing” them within their brains and therefore making us all pretty much visual. This is the premise upon which the techniques employed by MAs such as The Memory Palace derive their inspiration. Much to its credit, this is not only a book about the personal stories of some of the most important contemporary memory champs alive today, it is also about how they accomplish their stunning and almost magical feats of mental acumen.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the book is that its author. 20-something and fledgling author, Joshua Foer, in the process of writing a piece for Discovery Magazine on the U.S. Memory Championships, is convinced to train himself for the competition. He, with no particularly high IQ or Savantist syndrome whatever, does just that and goes on to win. While it gives hope for us mortals on the one hand, the book goes on to describe the incredibly intense training that goes into accomplishing such a feat.

Writing for Discovery, this is not a schlock, tabloid-like look at the subject of memory. Much of what is outlined is taken from cutting-edge research in the fields of psychology and neuroscience. I felt that the book was very well written, easy to understand, edifying and enjoyable. I think that I came to better understand and appreciate how much memory actually defines just who we are... and not necessarily who we are to others, but who we are to ourselves. The book was very well narrated and was everything a book should be and I give it five stars all the way around. ...more

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Nov 29, 2014 Vonia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: immersion-journalism, academia, memoir, novelty-and-humor, memory, all-time-favorites, fascinating-subcultures, self-help, entertainment-industry, philosophy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Plain and simple. This is a valuable book that overviews so much more than the title. There are a few pages highlighting the basics on how to be an "expert" menocist, but really these are things that need to be practiced; it is nothing that cannot be easily found elsewhere. All can be traced to The Method of Loci/The Memory Palace Technique, a mnemonic device adopted in ancient Roman and Greek rhetorical treatises (in the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero's De Oratore, and Quintilian's In Plain and simple. This is a valuable book that overviews so much more than the title. There are a few pages highlighting the basics on how to be an "expert" menocist, but really these are things that need to be practiced; it is nothing that cannot be easily found elsewhere. All can be traced to The Method of Loci/The Memory Palace Technique, a mnemonic device adopted in ancient Roman and Greek rhetorical treatises (in the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero's De Oratore, and Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria). In basic terms, it is a method of memory enhancement which uses visualization to organize and recall information; data is stored in a sequence of memorable images that can be translated back into their original form (i.e., remembering a groceries list would translate into placing said list items into various "locations" around a house; the more memorable the image, the better. On recall, the idea is that the individual would "walk" through the house, the images coming to mind with relative ease). Many memory contest champions claim to use this technique to recall faces, digits, and lists of words. These champions’ successes have little to do with brain structure or intelligence, but more to do with their technique of using regions of their brain that have to do with spatial learning. He includes The Major System and the PAO System for memorizing numbers and cards, and Mind Mapping by Buzan, founder of The Memory Championship in this country.

In fact, the title is completely misleading, as it really is not so much a guide on how to become an expert in memorization as it is a reference/informational book on so many intriguing topics, from The Art of Memory to The History of Printing to Savant Syndrome to Defining Expertise to Linguistics, Humanities, Mythology, Psychology, Sociology, Neurosciences... The list goes on, as Foer managed to cover a lot of research in his year, unemployed, studying for The National Memory Championships. He also meets Daniel Tammet (formerly Corney), a famous savant whom he manages to "debunk" a little, Kim Peek, inspiration for "Rain Man", & "EP", who seems to essentially be the character in "50 First Dates" whom forgets everything within two minutes (not Drew Barrymore, but the guy they meet together @ the hospital).

Aside from all this fascinating information there is Foer's story; the memoir aspect of the book in which he documents his year in training, his transition from reporter at the event one year with a mere interest in the techniques used to becoming a serious competitor in the following year's event. Yes, I will say I am quite impressed that Foer was able to win it all; as The 2006 United States of America Memory Champion, he represented the nation in the international circuit. Of course, as in all things education, we are far subpar in the international realm, so Foer, although still managing to perform impressively, did not place.

Foer states in the epilogue that he had no hesitation in deciding never to compete again; although fun, challenging, etcetera, he knew there were better ways to use his time. The important thing he has from his year immersed in this subculture is the insightful proof that with enough work, enough practice, enough desire, the brain can do quite awesome things. As obvious and/or cliche as this seems, I agree with Foer completely. This is my take away from his story, as well. ...more

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Nov 12, 2013 Cher rated it did not like it

Shelves: bookclub, nonfiction, audiobook

1.5 stars - I didn't like it.

This book had languished on my TBR shelf for over a year before I finally picked it up. Alas, it was not worth the wait. There are tiny moments of interesting information regarding how the human memory works, but for the most part, the author drones on about mundane details regarding his tedious preparation for a memory contest. It was a repetitive read, and very difficult to maintain focus and interest in the book. Sadly, I do not feel it will be very memorable, tho ...more

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Oct 22, 2013 James rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

A deeply interesting book. Joshua Foer covered a US Memory Championship and was inspired or stumbled into the world of memorization to the extent that a year later he competed and won the US memory championship. Now accounts of journalist undertaking some droll activity, with some appealingly oddball characters, are pretty common place and usually feel like a great magazine article was stretched out to painful lengths.

What made Moonwalking with Einstein so enjoyable was the mixture between lear A deeply interesting book. Joshua Foer covered a US Memory Championship and was inspired or stumbled into the world of memorization to the extent that a year later he competed and won the US memory championship. Now accounts of journalist undertaking some droll activity, with some appealingly oddball characters, are pretty common place and usually feel like a great magazine article was stretched out to painful lengths.

What made Moonwalking with Einstein so enjoyable was the mixture between learning about things you never knew you would find interesting, having answers to questions you always wanted to know, a practical application that is surprisingly effective, and finally putting it all in a rich context.

In terms of the practical application I could do no better than steer you to this review my link text with the warning that you will now have lodged in your mind the particular set of chores Steve was grappling with on that day for much longer than you would ever want. As some of the other reviewers point out there are probably better texts out there to help you learn the art or science of memorization many of them written over a thousand years ago.

I doubt though you would get the same richness of nuggets. Two of my favourites: Chess Grandmasters and Chicken Sexers have the same IQ and the same highly evolved use of certain parts of the brain; and that the earliest texts had no punctuation or indeed spaces between words, a form of writing that would suit me to a tee.

I have always wondered about the claims that ones brain is akin to a muscle that can be further developed by extensive training. A claim that is thoroughly debunked and will save us all a fortune in late night advetorials but rather different parts of the brain can be enlisted in solving memory questions. So essentially while we struggle to remember more than seven numbers or seven words we are absolutely wonderful at remembering a whole host of images.

Finally the whole book is put in the context of what the learning of memory has meant and what it means in todays environment where on has so very many tools that replace the need to rely one oneself.

A grand read and if you will excuse me I will be constructing an array of memory palaces.
...more

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Jun 26, 2011 Alex Givant rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-again, best-of-2019, reread, memory

Vivid explanation of how we remember and forget, what the human's memory is and how it works, how people use different systems to remember things (for regular life and memory competitions). The only problem - hard to remember all details about this beautiful book, so need to re-read it. :-)

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Jan 18, 2020 Desi (Pastel Pages) rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Absolutely loved this! The audiobook was fantastic. I honestly can't believe the information in this book isn't being taught in school. I learned HOW to remember, and it was fascinating to see Joshua's progress as he made it to the memory championships. Would highly recommend it! :)

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About Joshua Foer

Joshua Foer

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Personal life

Foer is the younger brother of New Republic editor Franklin Foer and novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. He is the son of Esther Foer, president of a public relations firm, and Albert Foer, a think-tank president. He was born in Washington, D.C. and attended Georgetown Day School. He then went on to graduate from Yale University, where he lived in Silliman College, in 2004.

Foer is married ...more

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“Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next - and disappear. That's why it's so important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.” — 185 likes

“It is forgetting, not remembering, that is the essence of what makes us human. To make sense of the world, we must filter it. "To think," Borges writes, "is to forget.” — 71 likes

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