Joshua Foer

A fascinating read about improving your memory and memory championships. The brain is pretty incredible.

We remember things in context. The more associative hooks something has the more embedded it gets into the network of things you already know and the more likely it is to be remembered. The brain is better at remembering if there are visual cues / images. Chunking can also assist (e.g. 0291852719 vs 029 185 2719).

Use spacial memory to remember things (i.e. memory palaces). An example:
1. Think of your family home, an area you are intimately familiar with.
2. Place the objects you want to remember at locations along a route in the home (start at driveway then front step etc).
2a Remember each object multi-sensory (location, sounds, smells). Deeply process image. Try and make it amusing (this makes it more vivid).
3. Retrace steps.
4. If you retrace steps again later in the day, in a week or will even further ingrain this into memory.

Remembering numbers can be done with the Major system created by Johann Winckelmann through replacing numbers with phonetic sounds that can then be constructed as a word freely interdispersed with vowels (i.e. 0 as S, 1 as T or D, 2 N, 3 M, 4 R, 5 L, 6 Sh or Ch, 7 K or G, 8 F or V, 9 P or B), therefore 32 could be man, 86 a fish, 7879 a coffee cup which you can then place in your memory palace.

A mindmap can be considered a type of memory place that helps you organise ideas into common areas.

I personally would have preferred a book that jumped straight into techniques to adopt as opposed to a book talking about the great memory of numerous people, memory championships and our physiology. Chapters 5 and 8 are where I found the most practical content.

3.5/5… (mer)

Foer became interested in people who participate in competitive memorization contests, and when those people told him that anyone can do it, he put that idea to the test and spent a year learning advanced memorization techniques and successfully competing in memorization tournaments.

I read this because I was interested in learning some memorization techniques myself. The book does discuss some of the techniques in detail, but it also spends a lot of time talking about the people who participate in memory championships, the history of the competitions, and Foer's own experiences. That was all reasonably interesting, but wasn't the information I was really looking for.

If you're interested in memorization techniques, I think Mary Carruther's Book of Memory is far more interesting.… (mer)

An interesting book that I browsed, rather than read. It seems more like an encyclopedia than an atlas, listing and describing various locations with enough photos included to tantalize the curious traveler. It's organized by continent/country/city with some small maps to keep the reader oriented. The trick is that these are obscure attractions. So by definition, the reader/traveler will need to travel a little afield to get to many of the more interesting places.

I'm a browser by nature, which makes this an ideal book for me to spend days perusing. But I dared not spend days in it, only dipping my toes to get a feel. Perhaps I'll return and drink more deeply. For now, I'll just recommend it to the curious and to my future self.… (mer)