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Moonwalking with Einstein, By Joshua Foe

 

Arifa Akbar
Friday 20 January 2012 01:00 GMT
Comments

When Joshua Foer first mentions the ancient "art of memory", it sounds pretentious in an age when our brains are fit to bursting with information overload. Surely the Internet can do our remembering for us? It doesn't take Foer long to convince us otherwise.

A science journalist who became so interested by memory that he ended up in the USA Memory Championship, Foer combines conversations with memory nerds with fascinating philosophical and neurological theories.

By losing our memories, we lose more than mere information, and when years appear slip by, it is because we have remembered less. To expand subjective time, we need to revisit the "art of memory" and sharpen up our grey matter.

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