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excerpt:"An epidemic of amnesia, as potent as one of the surreal plagues in Gabriel García Márquez's novels, seems to have hit our culture. It's not just aging baby boomers who are complaining about their lousy memories. Their kids, too, have forgotten how to remember phone numbers, driving directions and the basic data of daily life. After all, why bother to memorize anything when there are cellphones and Google to do it for you?
In his captivating new book, "Moonwalking With Einstein," the young journalist Joshua Foer tackles the subject of memory the way George Plimpton tackled pro football and boxing. After a year of memory training, this novice not only began competing against the country's best mental athletes but also unexpectedly found himself in the finals of the U.S.A. Memory Championships. His story shows, he says, that "our memories are indeed improvable" and that there are established techniques — pioneered by the Greeks and Romans — to help train the brain.
