Moonwalking with Einstein: Ch 1-4

During my free time today, I sat beside the water under the shade and read peacefully while listening to jazz music from my phone. It was simply wonderful, but what made it was a great book: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer.

When I first picked up this novel, I thought it to be a discussion of how the brain works and why -- or, in some capacity, dealing with Einstein's intellectual abilities. In fact, it is about Josh Foer's discovery of the mental elite or "Mental Athletes" -- those who have trained themselves in the art of memory. I honestly had to think for a while on the idea of memorization as an "art." Nonetheless, I kept reading.

To be clear, Moonwalking with Einstein is not a self-help guide to improving one's memory; the first four chapters are solely about his discovery of the possibility of "remember everything" and some of the scientific literature  and stories surrounding what us, average memorizers, see as inherent talent. To know that there is an art, a tool that is learned, for reciting thousands of digits in sequence and gibberish at the snap of a finger is, frankly, difficult to believe -- just as it was for him at first. I read through roughly half of this book in the two hours I spent on the ground and was captivated immediately. I stopped at Ch. 5, where he begins his year of training for the world championship. (I don't like to be interrupted near the climaxes.)

I did, however, immediately look into the World Memory Championship, which I did not know existed until reading this book. I have no intention of competing but, boy, would I like to watch. It's neither Superbowl-level of excitement nor tennis-level, though it is irrefutably something for the bucket list. Best of luck to all the competitors!