Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
So I picked up this Audio CD based on the title at the local library (and a quick Bing Vision scan of the UPC to check Amazon reviews). Let me just say that the title, and subtitle are nonsense. It should read: Memory Champion: My year-long journey to win the US Memory Championships. OK, so don’t hire me to market your book.
The author writes about his experience of covering the world memory championships and training for a year to win the US championship. Generally mental athletes use techniques to recharacterize abstract concepts into images that are easy to remember. As an example, it was demonstrated that we’re very good at remembering images. If you flip through a stack of pictures, you’ll be able to remember which ones you’ve seen before later.
So, the trick they use to memorize, is to convert whatever you want to remember into memorable images. For example, if you memorize the Ace of Spades as Michael Jackson moonwalking on a tightrope, then you might take 3 cards in a row, and take the person from the 1st card, the action from the 2nd card, and the object from the 3rd, and memorize that. Perhaps the author moonwalking with Einstein is one 3 card combination? You take that memorable image and picture it vividly. The author talks about how they create memory palaces, which are memorable locations such as their childhood home, where they place the images they’re trying to remember. That way they can walk through their home, putting the images in the correct order. Using this technique the author broke the US record by memorizing a deck of cards in 1 minute 40 seconds. The world record is like 30 seconds.
That’s the technique, but the purpose of the book isn’t to teach you how to do it, or very much about the art or science of it. He talks about his journey and the experience. So while it’s not what the title suggests, it is fairly interesting. Not interesting enough to recommend, but it was a generally enjoyable way to spend my commute.
- Interesting: Medium
- Informative: Low
- Engaging: Medium
Note, my book notes are probably more for my own benefit than yours. This just provides a summary of content as a way to remember what I learned
