(I'm so sorry for the colossal gaps between posts but it's been snowing pretty good here in Jackson which kinda means that everything else gets pushed to the side. Apologies, and here's the book the hour.)


Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything By Joshua Foer (Penguin Press, 307 pp, $21.56)-- I read it in November or so, and ironically enough, forgot all about it. (Ironic because it's a book about memory!). Anyways, after hearing Joshua Foer on NPR and reading about him in the NY Times magazine, I not only remembered it but remembered how really great it was, too. Let me limn it out: Foer, a struggling journalist seeking Plimpton-esque immersion into a fast-paced professional competition stumbles upon the World Memory Championships which, after much training and study of The Human Memory's place in history, science, literature, and such, he enters and ... well you find out for yourself (and anyways I forget). It's a really fun read that does a great job of describing the memory exercises and strategies Foer and other Mind-letes employ (the coolest and most central one involves walking around a big house in your head and looking at things...), and also makes a lot of sense out of the former importance memorization had in schools and for poets like Homer back, you know, then. CHECK IT OUT!



That's because the book is so much more that a seductive piece of investigative journalism that has you rooting for memory geeks and