Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

by Joshua Foer

The brain is a mutable organ, capable—within limits—of reorganizing itself and readapting to new kinds of sensory input, a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity.

Chunking is a way to decrease the number of items you have to remember by increasing the size of each item.

a great memory isn’t just a by-product of expertise; it is the essence of expertise.

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 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.

How we perceive the world and how we act in it are products of how and what we remember.