Moonwalking with Einstein

by Joshua Foer

This is the story of how Joshua Foer became the US Memory Champion. He went from covering the event as a journalist to learning the art of memorizing things to winning the US championship in one year.

The book also covers some of the history of remembering and development of techniques to improve one's memory. Before computers or, even, print texts and information were stored by verbal repetition. People remembered things because they had to - like most of us (who are old enough) used to before we had the technical means to store information outside our brains. I myself used to remember phone numbers before I - or anyone else, for that matter - had a cell phone that remembered the numbers for me.

One of staples of memorization is the so-called 'loci' technique aka the memory palace. I have been introduced to it in a course I once participated in. From that one off experiment of trying to recall a list of 30 random words by placing them in different places in the house I grew up in I can confirm that it does actually work. I could recall the list of words forwards and backwards for days.

Mr. Foer meets up with an illustrious group of mnemonics that compete in various championships as well as some so-called 'savants', whose stories he sometimes calls into question (not their abilities, but the way they claim to remember and/or calculate things). All the while, he trains his own brain to prepare for the big event.

The championship includes disciplines like learning the names of people on photo head shots, remembering random numbers, remembering the correct order of stacks of playing cards  etc. 

At the front door, I saw my friend Liz vivisecting a pig (two of hearts, two of diamonds, three of hearts). Just inside, the Incredible Hulk rode a stationary bike while a pair of oversize, loopy earrings weighed down his earlobes (three of clubs, seven of diamonds, jack of spades). Next to the mirror at the bottom of the stairs, Terry Bradshaw balanced on a wheelchair (seven of hearts, nine of diamonds, eight of hearts), and just behind him, a midget jockey in a sombrero parachuted from an airplane with an umbrella (seven of spades, eight of diamonds, four of clubs). [...] I saw my friend Ben urinating on Benedict XVI's papal skullcap (ten of diamonds, two of clubs, six of diamonds), Jerry Seinfeld sprawled out bleeding on the hood of a Lamborghini in the hallway (five of hearts, ace of diamonds, jack of hearts), ad at the foot of my parents' bedroom door, myself moonwalking with Einstein (four of spades, king of hearts, three of diamonds).

Quite interesting and easy read.

7/10