Moonwalking with Einstein

Joshua Foer, 2011

Joshua Foer, a journalist with an average memory, trains for a year and wins the U.S. Memory Championship, showing how the ancient memory palace lets ordinary minds remember far more.

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13 parts, about 24 minutes to read.

Why read it

A journalist with an average memory trains for a year with the ancient memory palace to test whether anyone can improve
Shows how to remember more: turn facts into vivid images placed along familiar routes, then practice just past your limit
Mixes a firsthand contest with the science of experts, amnesia and savants, and asks what we lose by outsourcing memory

Who it is for

Students facing heavy memorization
Learners stuck on a plateau who want to keep improving
Readers curious how memory and expertise really work

What the summary covers

Summary1 min
The Smartest Man Is Hard to Find2 min
The Man Who Remembered Too Much2 min
The Expert Expert2 min
The Most Forgetful Man in the World2 min
The Memory Palace2 min
How to Memorize a Poem2 min
The End of Remembering1 min
The OK Plateau2 min
The Talented Tenth2 min
The Little Rain Man in All of Us2 min
The U.S. Memory Championship2 min
Epilogue2 min

Recommended by

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Dan ArielyProfessor of behavioral economics at Duke University

About the author

Joshua FoerAmerican freelance journalist and author focused on science
- Graduated from Yale University in 2004 with a B.A. in ecology and evolutionary biology
- Attended the 2005 USA Memory Championships as a journalist, which started his interest in competitive memory
- Won the 2006 U.S. Championship of Memory
- Writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate, The Nation and The New Yorker
- Cofounded Atlas Obscura in 2009
- Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013
- Cofounded the website Sefaria in 2013 to digitize the core texts of Judaism