What I loved most about this book, is that it provides almost instant value. Just read the first three chapters, and bam, the ideas and techniques are simple and universal enough so you can apply them to remembering anything, from shopping lists to dates without reading further.

You can keep on reading, and there are some good tips and tools provided in the rest of the book but it is entirely up to you.

2,5

5 stars for usefulness, not for perfection.
I'd recommend the first half of this book to every human on earth.

Cons:
- 2nd half of book is not necessary, but still has interspersed practical tips.
- Some explanations are over-detailed, giving the impression that the authors desired to fill pages.

Pros:
- Contains memory skills that are destiny-altering.
- If you do the practice exercises, you will likely remember far more than you expect, and be slightly disappointed that your brain has wacky backdoor exploits.

This is perhaps one of the most practical books I have read so far. The authors started with an introduction to the memory systems (e.g. Association, Link, Substitute Words, and Peg Words) before giving an array of real-world examples in which we could apply to our daily lives; these examples show us that we can apply these memory systems to practically any memory chores we have. That’s why I gave this book 5/5 stars!

I have to come back to this book and go through the techniques and exercises more slowly, and when I have more motivation and mental bandwidth. Definitely has intriguing principles and potential.

I normally only give nonfiction books 5 stars if they changed my perspective on some issue. This book, in a sense, has changed my perspective on everything. Within the first few chapters he asks you to memorize 10 random items in a row, you can't do it, and then he walks you through visusalizing each of them. A week later I still remember all of them in order. Most people have probably heard of this Link technique in some respect before (visualizing crazy things), but Lorayne dives deeper into other systems as well, the most interesting and useful of which being the Major system, using words as an encoding to memorize numbers. These are all fundamental techniques to people who compete in memory competitions and that sort of thing, but is eye-opening for a newbie. I've already started employing the techniques in my everyday life and it's wild. I can remember so many more people's faces and names, I learn my schoolwork faster and more efficiently, and I see myself using this for the rest of my life.

View my best reviews and a collection of mental models at jasperburns.blog.
Caveat: Once you've learned the three main techniques he talks about in this book (Link, Major, Peg), it becomes very repetitive where the second half of the book is almost no new information and just examples of how to employ his system and I could almost give it 4 stars for this fact. Also, he doesn't actually refer to the "Major system" by that term, but that seems to be the common name for it.

A very straightforward example of classic memory techniques. I liked this a lot as many other books or explanations had more about the history of memory than practical applications, this is all practical advice. Excited to practice and would recommend

I was looking for something different. This is an effective book if you'd like to learn about memorization techniques, but not necessarily about how i.e. to read better in order to retain more information. I was pleasantly surprised though to find out that memorization is an exercise of creativity, imagination, and humor. It's not a book to read casually, but to practice intensely, that if you want to reap the benefits (I didn't). I think that you really have to be interested in the topic in order to get through it in a committed way.

Great techniques to memory. You have to go slow and do the exercises and with practice you will definitely improve your memory. I definitely found it more useful for learning languages.

Quite good introduction into memory techniques that teaches standard stuff in a very hands-on fashion - a short introduction of theory and then endless supply of examples. While examples are of course important in the introductory book, I've found it really overdone, especially in the second part - instead of more advanced matter the authors just keep listing examples endlessly (and they get quite dull and repetitive). In my opinion the book should have been either much shorter or more versatile and nuanced, for example they didn't even mention Memory Palaces (Method of Loci), which is the cornerstone of all memory techniques.

Probably worth reading, if only for the sheer amount of real life examples, but I suspect that one can find all the information in few articles and forum posts because the book does not really deliver any extra value - narrative, continuity, history etc.

I am giving this book a very high rating because I think I read it but I can't remember but I'm guessing that it was very, very good. Books like this tend to be good (or at least good for you). I do not remember where I put it but it is here somewhere. I could not recall the name of the book but remembered the ISBN so it was easy to search on that.
I do recall that my children and husband gave it to me for some special event (birthday, Christmas, Saturday, or something.) I also know that co-author Jerry Lucas was a very famous NBA player and he had an incredible memory. He memorized great portions of the bible and also the New York City telephone directory.
All I know is "In the beginning there was 911".

The best book I have read up until now! It's certainly a lifetime must-read!

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