Title: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
Author: Joshua Foer
Date/year published: 2011
Genre: nonfiction, psychology, science
Format: audio (narrated by Mike Chamberlain), borrowed from local library and listened to using L:ibby App
Why did I choose to read it: The title, of course!
Synopsis: The author embarks on a year-long quest to improve his memory by participating in, and training for, the United States Memory Championship.
Thoughts:
As someone with two grandparents that struggled with dementia or alzheimers in their golden years, I thought this was going to be more of a “how to improve your memory for the sake of keeping it”, type book. I was wrong, but pleasantly surprised by my mistake.
Foer is a journalist who researched memory competitions for a story. Amazed by the mental athletes’ abilities he agrees to train under one of them in the hopes of competing in a tournament. Foer shares his research and the different methods he learns along the way. His writing is lighthearted, engaging, and interesting. His descriptions of the events he attends are vivid and entertaining.
(Spoiler) He does very well in the competitions, much to his own surprise, and is encouraged to continue his training. However, he realizes, the time and effort training requires greatly impedes his career and doesn’t improve his day-to-day memory. He still misplaces keys and forgets the milk.
This was a very interesting look inside a competition I didn’t even know existed! It also helped me recognize some memory techniques I use but didn’t realize were actual techniques. I also found the history bits informative. I enjoy history when it’s reviewed from unusual angles. In this case, each language improvement brought doomsayers; written word was going to end our mental progress. Printing press was going to decrease our brain’s capacity. Computers? You get the idea…
(Spoiler) The title comes from one of the memory techniques. By assigning an image to each number, a string of numbers becomes a silly picture, such as moon walking with Einstein.
Would I re-read or recommend it?
Re-read? Possibly, if I needed to brush up on my memorization for some reason. Because ironically, I don’t remember many of the details of the various techniques, just the overall goal or methodology. To be fair, that was Foer’s conclusion as well. These techniques might not help improve our daily memory.
Recommend? Yes. If you’re not a non-fiction fan, you might struggle with it. But overall, I think anyone who enjoys informative podcasts, nonfiction books that relate to history, our social and educational progress throughout time, and psychology or the workings of our brains, would enjoy this book.
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