Moonwalking with Einstein: - book review

			Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer Edition: Paperback Price: £8.68 Availability: In stock
5.0 out of 5 stars This book could ignite a Memory champion inside you., 1 Jun 2011

I really enjoyed this book. Building up one's memory is a skill I've wanted to develop. Several books I've purchased have been graphically wonderful but uninspiring.

This book is inspiring and very interesting. The author went from knowing little about the techniques of Memory championships to entering the American memory championships after one year of hard work with the techniques and a great mentor or 2.

The book takes us through the author's year of acquiring the skills to compete in the championships. He delivers interesting chapters about the history of memory, when it first started. Also why some essays have exaggerated descriptions of characters and events from the past.

He builds up characters in the book to the point where you feel you know their characteristics well. He takes us through his journey to building an ability to memorise.

I'm sure Joshua Foer will make his father proud of the ability to perform well in the USA Championships as well as produce a finely written book.

I'd say buy this book if you want to ignite or re-ignite really good reasons to make the effort to develop a great memory. If you've skimmed through 100's of really good books only to remember small fragments of them. Especially some spiritual books and self help books as well as useful business books. I tend to keep the good ones, swearing I'll go back and re-read them. But to actually go through one of those great books, break it down, build a memory palace of the book is something that's going to be a greater achievement and a lot more useful.

The author gives some frank views on Tony Buzan and the world's most famous Savant:- is he or isn't he.

There's a great summary too of the aftermath of building a great memory for the memory championships. Does he use the techniques afterwards? Is he going for more competitions? What are the life benefits of developing such skills?

I look forward to reading about his next project.