Books worth reading
If the tutorials here got you curious, these are the books that go further. None of them is required to use the app. We have no arrangement with any of their publishers; they're simply good.
Start here
Moonwalking with Einstein
Joshua Foer, 2011. The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.
A journalist goes to write about the US Memory Championship, ends up training for a year with the competitors, and comes back the following year to win it. Half the story of how he did it, half a history of memory and why we've stopped using it. The best introduction there is, and the most fun.
Read it for: the memory palace, the people behind it, and the "Baker / baker" problem.
Then, to practise
The Memory Book
Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas, 1974.
The classic how-to that a generation of memory performers learned from: linking, pegs, names and faces, numbers, and a chapter on foreign vocabulary that is the keyword method under another name.
Read it for: drills you can do with a pen.
How to Develop a Brilliant Memory Week by Week
Dominic O'Brien, 2005.
A 52-week course from an eight-time World Memory Champion, one technique a week, building up from lists to cards and long numbers.
Read it for: a structured plan, if you like one.
Unlimited Memory
Kevin Horsley, 2014.
Short and practical, from a memory competitor: the techniques without the history, aimed at studying and work.
Read it for: getting started in an afternoon.
For the history
The Art of Memory
Frances Yates, 1966.
The scholarly history of the memory palace, from the Greek orators through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Not a how-to, and not a light read, but it's where Moonwalking with Einstein sends you when you want to know more.
Read it for: where all of this came from.
The research behind the app
The three pieces the method guide is built on:
- Raugh & Atkinson (1975), A mnemonic method for learning a second-language vocabulary. The keyword method, tested on Spanish.
- McDaniel & Einstein (1986), Bizarre imagery as an effective memory aid. Why strange works, and when it doesn't.
- Why anatomy's naughtiest mnemonics work so well, The Conversation (2026). Why rude sticks.