Synopsis
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 remembering, and venerable tricks of the mentalist's trade to transform our understanding of human memory. From the United States Memory Championship to deep within the author's own mind, this is an electrifying work of journalism that reminds us that, in every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.
About Joshua Foer
See more books from this AuthorHe offers fascinating and accessible explorations into the workings of the brain. . .
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from KirkusDiscussing the neurological underpinnings of memory, he repeats some commonly held myths about it...
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from NY TimesHis narrative is smart and funny. . .it’s informed by a humanism that enables its author to place the mysteries of the brain within a larger philosophical and cultural context.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from NY TimesMoonwalking with Einstein is huge fun to read, intellectually rewarding and chronicles a lot of drunk and nerdy behaviour. But what in the end does Foer gain from his newfound capacity for total recall under testing conditions? A good book, certainly, and a better memory – but not vastly better.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from GuardianWithout that sore-thumb of a chapter, Moonwalking with Einstein would be a nearly perfect thing, a book that combines a skillful, literate look into how memory functions, and why it is so very important to us individually and culturally with a lush, sweet coating of its setting...
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from NY Journal of BooksIt's a good way to explore a certain kind of science, especially the essentially subjective science of memory.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from Guardian...by telling the story all over again five years later, he is hoping to prolong his meagre allocation of fame and persuade the world to remember his name. But I have too much on my mind, and now intend to exercise my prerogative as a thinker by forgetting him.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from GuardianFoer's self-improvement manual reads like the script for a reality TV series. . .
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from Guardian. . .it is Foer's detours down other side-streets of memory that make for some of the book's most compelling moments.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from GuardianMoonwalking With Einstein is a wonderful book on the dynamics of memory...The author provides many different examples of how people utilize memory to the maximum extent possible through a variety of techniques which involve rote memorization, intuition, compartmentalization, association and other vehicles described at length in the book.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from Blog CriticsAs Mr. Foer's own occasional absent-mindedness should remind us, the human memory is a complicated, confounding subject. Yet, in the end, "Moonwalking With Einstein" proves uplifting: It shows that with motivation, focus and a few clever tricks, our minds can do rather extraordinary things.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from WSJ online. . .his account implies that all our past experiences are actually lurking somewhere in the brain. . .scientists have been debating the permanence of memory for decades. . .many reject the idea. . .
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from WSJ onlineHis book’s simple three-act narrative (discovery, training and competition) serves as a kind of picture rail from which Foer can hang other information about the art of memory.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from Financial Times. . .he has a gift for communicating fairly complex ideas in a manner that is palatable without being patronising.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein | See more reviews from Financial Times...decided to train for the competition, using shuffled cards and thousand-digit integers as his weights and treadmills. But that’s just the skeleton on which Foer hangs a fascinating scientific analysis of mnemonic mysteries.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein. . .reminds us that though brain science is a wild frontier and the mechanics of memory little understood, our minds are capable of epic achievements.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinAlways fascinating and frequently mind-boggling, Moonwalking with Einstein is a book worth remembering.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinWhile Foer ultimately fails to find the “world’s smartest person,” he succeeds in a much more important sense. He reminds us of our own capacity to remember, probing what our memories mean for the quality of our lives...
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinI'm not about to strap on a pair of memory goggles and start training as Foer did, but his book was an enjoyable and informative glance at what's possible - maybe I too can actually learn people's names at parties and remember them if I run into one of them on the T.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinOur memories hold the content of our relationships and give us a context in which to view it—all the more reason to fine-tune this important and easily honed skill.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinOur memories hold the content of our relationships and give us a context in which to view it. . .
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinIn a curious and complex place, journalist Joshua Foer tells us in "Moonwalking With Einstein," a beguiling exploration of the manifold aspects of memory and memorizing...Oddly, he does not cover the rare individuals with phenomenal autobiographical memories that allow them to remember every day of their lives.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinHe does not tell his story as a salesman for mnemonic techniques...It is Foer’s gifts as a teacher and a storyteller that make this book essential reading.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinWhile Foer's remarkable achievement makes for a compelling story, it would soon wear thin as the sole premise of a book or movie...points out that dismissing memory development and ignoring its long history as an important, worthwhile discipline is to completely miss the point.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein. . .Foer's book is remarkable, and also remarkably practical.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein. . .this wonderful, rich, philosophical, well-written premise devolves over its 277 pages. . .By the end, even Foer seems tired. . .
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinOne of the more intriguing ideas in Foer’s book: to know something, really, in the first place, is to memorize it.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinMoonwalking with Einstein is the kind of book that can spark conversations. While reading it, I found myself saying to several people -- friends, my hair stylist, people I'd meet at a party -- how something they said reminded me of something from a book I was reading...
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein. . .charming piece of participatory journalism. . .
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinMoonwalking with Einstein brings Joshua Foer to the apex of the U.S. Memory Championship, and brings readers to a profound appreciation of a gift that we all possess, but that too often slips our minds.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein. . .a beguiling exploration of the manifold aspects of memory and memorizing.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinBut Foer’s speculations are fascinating, and he slides you through this material effortlessly.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinEven faced with that daunting bit of reality, the promise of improving the memory a little bit is compelling reason enough to read this wonderful first book.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinSo if the old string-around-your-finger technique has failed you again, make a mental note and don’t forget this title: Moonwalking with Einstein.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein. . .rich with information about the nature of memory and how it makes us who we are.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinIf you are interested at all in the art of memory through the ages...I highly recommend Moonwalking with Einstein. I found it to be a fascinating look at how memory works.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With Einstein. . .an enlightening read with a valuable message for a society that has made technology its surrogate memory.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinAlthough the title seems a little bizarre, it is not until you are reading his blow-by-blow account of the championship that you realize that one of his "mental images," was Foer moonwalking with Einstein to help remember a playing card...This book is commended as a good read of an interesting memory challenge.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinJoshua Foer does a fantastic job in proving that with largely forgotten methods, we can all improve our memories.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinFoer’s book is wonderful when exploring the ideas of memory, but lacks the same sort of passion when Foer focuses on himself and tying his experiences to broader themes.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinIt’s entertaining and interesting, very well-written and very well-researched, and I think the memory techniques it teaches have the potential to be quite helpful in certain situations.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinMoonwalking with Einstein might have you seeing the world differently. You may learn how to memorize a poem, and even pick up some visuals you can use to help you remember where you parked the car.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinMoonwalking turned out to be a fun read with just the right mix of the science of memory and the quirky people who compete in memorization championships.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinPart Oliver Saks, part memoir, part plain old self-help guide, Moonwalking with Einstein is a piece of new nonfiction I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinMoonwalking with Einstein brings Joshua Foer to the apex of the U.S. Memory Championship and readers to a profound appreciation of a gift we all possess but that too often slips our minds.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinOverall, it creates a book which showcases how one person was able to train their memory in an extraordinary way while providing context for those techniques. Moonwalking with Einstein is a wonderful book that is deeply reflective of the human mind.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinThe path we find ourselves going along with Mr. Foer on his journey is delightful, inventing and funny, the people he meets are interesting and quirky.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinThe book falls a bit short as simply a story about that journey, but it excels in other areas. It provides more insight and specific examples about the deliberate practice research that has been written about in books including Outliers and Talent is Overrated...
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinThe "tricks" for improving your memory (of certain things) have been known for a couple thousand years. I don't think there is anything new about how to improve your memory, and Moonwalking with Einstein is not really a how-to book anyway.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinThe book reminds us that we all start off with pretty much the same tools for the most part, and we can be intentional about strengthening them, or not.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinBy wrapping fascinating facts and anecdotes about memory up with his own story, Foer keeps it riveting throughout. This is one of those books that I literally had trouble putting down. Anyone with even a passing interest in the human mind should remember to stick Moonwalking With Einstein in their brain hole.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinWhile the book is an interesting look into the world of memory and the techniques one can use to train it, a lot of Foer’s discoveries cannot really be harnessed in every day life.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinA book that should definitely arouse your interest in mnemonics and will surely help you realize that if just another average guy like us, Joshua, could do it, then even we can do it - not to win any memory championship but to improvise our retention which definitely will be a great booster professionally and personally too.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinSo if you thought of reading the book, but were hesitant because it’s all about dudes and these techniques couldn’t possibly work for you, I’d urge you to pick up a copy.
Read Full Review of Moonwalking With EinsteinAn aggregated and normalized score based on 1646 user ratings from iDreamBooks & iTunes
This is a really entertaining book. It is encouraging to learn that a guy with an average memory can train to become a 'memory athlete' and commit anything he likes to memory. The concept of a 'mem...
Full ReviewVery interesting read!
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