Joshua Foer, brother of a fiction writer whom I frequently mix up with Jonathans Franzen and Lethem, was writing a story about the world memory champions, people who can memorize the order of multiple decks of cards in five minutes, people who can repeat with perfect accuracy lists of thousands of complicated, unrelated items. Without exception, the memory champions he speaks to assure him that they are not special, their brains are not exceptional, and that anyone could learn to be a memory champion. Foer decides to put this theory to the test by seeing if he can become the…
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