Bill Gates likes to read and share his book recommendations with the rest of us, and this week he revealed which title impressed him the most summer — “Moonwalking with Einstein” by Joshua Foer.

Foer, who is a science writer by day, examines our ability to memorize things, the tagline of his book is “The Art and Science of Remembering Everything”. In it, Foer takes a closer look at various memory techniques, some dating as far back as ancient Greece. After training his memory for a year, Foer makes it to the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship — and wins!

Reading Gates’ review of the book, it is clear that it inspired the Microsoft chairman. He seems interested in trying some of the techniques for himself, perhaps hoping to improve his Bridge game, but also recognizes that training memory is not an easily accomplished task. On the appeal of “Moonwalking with Einstein” he says:

Like most people, I’m fascinated by how the mind works, and memory is a big element of that. Part of the beauty of this book is that it makes clear how memory and understanding are not two different things. Building up the ability to reason and the ability to retain information go hand in hand.

“Moonwalking with Einstein” (307 pages) was published on August 30th 2012, by The Penguin Press.

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