Moonwalking with Einstein : the art and science of remembering everything

Why is it that career waiters don't have to write down their orders? How are the best violinists able to memorize a new score after playing it only once? Is good memory a personality trait some people are born with - or is there an art to remembering we can all learn and ultimately master? After one year of talking to memory experts and neuroscientists, savants and amnesiacs, chess masters and historians of memory, and undertaking intense memory training under a Memory Grand Master, Joshua Foer achieves the seemingly unachievable: becoming a U.S. Memory Champion. He finds himself among the extraordinary ranks of people who can recite pi to ten-thousand decimal places, memorize shuffled decks of cards in under an hour and commit to memory what happened on ninety-six different historical dates in five minutes. With the right training, dogged determination and the competitive drive of physical athletes, Moonwalking with Einstein shows us, we can all achieve mastery of our memory.