100 books like Memory

This bestselling book is not so much about your memory as how to implant lasting memories in others.

How is it that some events and pieces of information are amazingly memorable, whereas others are lost as soon as our mental backs are turned? In a series of entertaining real-life examples, the authors propose and illustrate ways in which information can be “made to stick.” These include some obvious ones like getting people’s attention and building on their existing knowledge – stuff they are interested in.

Other factors are less obvious; set up an intriguing puzzle, provide some really unexpected information, especially of an emotional kind, embed the new information in an attention-grabbing story. Of course knowing how to teach effectively also reveals much about how memory works!

This classic book, unlike others in the list, is not so much about memory, as a collection of the author’s memories of his childhood and early years.

Nabokov was born into a wealthy family in pre-Revolutionary Russia in 1899. His childhood in St. Petersburg and at the family’s country estate are described in loving detail, as are aspects of later years in England, Germany, and France. Nabokov was one of the great writers of the 20th Century, and the memories are recounted in his glowing and evocative prose.

His writing is nostalgic, but also wryly humorous, aware that many aspects of his early life are gone forever. Many of the chapters first appeared as articles in The New Yorker; all are eminently readable. 

Daniel Schacter is a prominent memory theorist and cognitive neuroscientist who has written several highly successful books for the general public.

In this one he provides a framework for memory’s imperfections – the seven sins of the title! Using this framework he shows how the problems come about, and suggests ways to overcome them.

The sins in question include forgetting, absent-mindedness, temporary blocks on recalling well-known names, false memories, and the unwelcome persistence of memory for traumatic events. These everyday problems of memory are illustrated by striking examples drawn from public life, and are discussed in terms of current theories and the brain mechanisms involved.

This is an informed and informative account of human memory by an expert in the field.

Despite its title, this engaging book is actually about memory, especially “autobiographical memory” – memories of our own personal experiences.

The chapters describe some classical cases of memory excellence and memory failure, and provide thoughtful discussions of many topics that puzzle readers.

These include the power of smell to evoke past experiences, the astonishing memories of chess and draughts grandmasters, the downside of remembering everything, the highly specific memories of some people with savant syndrome, and indeed why life seems to speed up as we get older – the relationship between memory and time.

It is a truism that Science Fiction dates itself. SF stories that were written only a few years previous often fail to foresee technological innovations ̶ cell phones, GPS, gene-splicing ̶ that seem obvious and inevitable to hindsight-blessed present-day readers. Those disconcerted by such, let us call them “backwards anachronisms,” should find Quantum Thief a welcome relief for decades to come, because the novel is set so far in the future that hi-tech things like, say, cell phones seem quaint curios out of far-distant days of yore. Long-distance communications in Quantum Thief are effected by something more like telepathy (although the word is never used).

“Quantum” is the operative term in this novel, make no mistake.

Be forewarned: Quantum Thief is chock-full of coined terminology. But have no fear. You have a choice. Either use the online glossary - or you can just read for the story and absorb the… show more.

This is one of the best critical surveys of the relationship between memory and history I have encountered. Geoffrey Cubitt is concerned with memory as both personal and social, along with the various dynamics between them. The book is interdisciplinary in conception and operation, exploring how history and memory inform one another in complementary and contradictory ways, and how both cross and re-cross varying scales of past/present relations. Regardless of whether readers approach this book from the perspective of memory or history, they will find it a comprehensive assessment of their complex interaction.

Giordano Bruno was a great memory master who refined a meditation technique he learned from Ramon Llull. The technique involves using a "memory wheel." Different parts of the wheel contain problems, and an inner wheel contains solutions. Bruno gives many tips on how to use memory techniques so that you can meditate using the memory wheels.

Although very challenging, John Michael Greer's translation is clear and the illustrations help make your use of the memory techniques easy. The book also offers fantastic ideas for developing the best possible mindset for pursuing your meditation and learning goals over the long term.

If you love a smart, self-referential book in the mode of A Series of Unfortunate Events, you will love Adam Perry’s book. Right from the beginning, the book speaks directly to the reader with warnings about what’s ahead: monsters and villains and horrible deaths. But instead of being a Stephen King horror novel for the middle grade set, the book has a fairy tale-meets-Thursday Next vibe. The protagonist, Oliver, steals books from the library, but since no one reads anymore, he’s not overly concerned about his thievery. That is, until he steals a book that is also being sought by the Pribbles, two inventors that have devised a set of goggles to steal the book directly from Oliver’s mind. Mayhem and shenanigans ensue, and it’s all just delightful. 

Andreas Huyssen is the author of many distinguished books, but this one is especially important because it expanded the study of public memory to South America, which has had its own share of traumatic pasts to memorialize. Huyssen argues that World War II and the Holocaust have provided  “templates” for memorialization that have been adapted by the Memory Park in Buenos Aires, among other examples. 

Focusing in the main on the psychology of memory, in this excellent book Kurt Danziger argues that conceptually memory has changed considerably over time, not least because of the shifting historical contexts in which it has been applied. The book covers such critical issues as different kinds of memory, memory and metaphor, the cultivation of memory, and memory and truth. Danziger’s contention throughout the book is that memory and remembering are ineluctably social, and any sound understanding of them needs to account for how various historical factors and cultural practices have shaped and helped constitute them.