The best books to improve your memory
Nine books that actually help, from memory-palace techniques to the science of why we forget. Who each one is for, and what you’ll get out of it.
Most “improve your memory” advice online is a list of the same five tips. Books go deeper: they explain why a technique works, give you time to practice it, and change how you think about remembering. These are the ones we’d hand to a friend, grouped by what you want to get out of them.
Quick picks
- Best overall: Moonwalking with Einstein
- Best for learning memory techniques: Unlimited Memory
- Best for students: Make It Stick
- Best on the science of memory: Remember
- Best for color lovers: Interaction of Color
Memory techniques
Moonwalking with Einstein
Joshua Foer · 2011 · Best overall
A journalist goes to cover the U.S. Memory Championship, gets curious, and spends a year training with memory athletes. A year later he competes himself. It’s part adventure story, part history of memory, and it teaches the memory palace technique along the way.
Read it if: you want to be convinced that a “good memory” can be trained, not just born with. It’s the most enjoyable book on this list.
Try it: the Memory Palace page explains the same technique in a few minutes.
Unlimited Memory
Kevin Horsley · 2014 · Best for learning techniques
Short, practical and exercise-driven, written by a memory competitor. It walks through turning information into vivid images, building mental “journeys”, and using them to remember lists, names, numbers and speeches.
Read it if: you want a hands-on manual more than a story. You can put it to work the same day.
Try it: use the image-and-story method in Words and watch your score change.
The Memory Book
Harry Lorayne & Jerry Lucas · 1974 · The classic
The book that made memory systems popular. It covers the link method, peg words and a system for turning numbers into words, plus how to remember names and faces. Some examples feel dated, but the methods are the same ones memory champions still use.
Read it if: you want the full toolbox of classic systems in one place.
Try it: the number-to-word system is made for Sequence.
Learning and studying
Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III & Mark A. McDaniel · 2014 · Best for students
Written with two memory researchers, this is the clearest guide to what actually works when studying: testing yourself instead of rereading, spacing practice out over days, and mixing topics together. It also explains why the methods that feel productive often aren’t.
Read it if: you study for exams, learn skills for work, or teach.
Try it: a daily game is spaced practice in disguise. Playing a little every day beats one long session.
How We Learn
Benedict Carey · 2014
A science journalist’s tour of learning research, full of surprising findings: why changing where you study can help, how sleep locks in what you learned, and why forgetting is part of learning rather than its enemy.
Read it if: you liked Make It Stick and want more stories and fewer study plans.
The science of memory
Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting
Lisa Genova · 2021 · Best on the science
A neuroscientist (and best-selling novelist) explains how memories are made, why we forget names and where we put our keys, and which kinds of forgetting are normal. Warm, clear and reassuring.
Read it if: you’ve ever worried that forgetting things means something is wrong. Most of the time, it doesn’t.
Why We Remember
Charan Ranganath · 2024
A memory researcher argues that memory isn’t built to store the past perfectly but to help us plan the future. It covers why emotional moments stick, why memories change each time we recall them, and how to remember what matters.
Read it if: you want the newest thinking on memory from someone who studies it for a living.
For color lovers
Interaction of Color
Josef Albers · 1963 · Best for color lovers
A classic for artists and designers. Through simple exercises, it shows how the same color looks completely different depending on what’s next to it. It will change how you see every color around you.
Read it if: you play Hue and want to understand why your remembered colors drift.
The Secret Lives of Color
Kassia St Clair · 2016
Short, fascinating histories of dozens of individual colors: where each pigment came from, what it meant, and the strange stories behind them. Easy to dip in and out of.
Read it if: you want something fun rather than technical. It makes a great gift.
How to get the most from a memory book
Practice while you read. Memory techniques only work once you’ve used them a few times. Try each one the same day you read about it.
Measure yourself. Play the daily games for a week before you start, then keep playing. Your stats page will show whether the techniques are helping.
Check your library. All of these are popular, so most public libraries have them, often as e-books or audiobooks too.
These books are about everyday memory and learning. If you’re worried about memory changes in yourself or someone else, talk to a doctor.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best book to improve memory?
For most people, Moonwalking with Einstein: it’s enjoyable and teaches the memory palace technique. If you want a practical manual instead, start with Unlimited Memory.
Can you really train your memory?
You can get much better at remembering specific kinds of information by using techniques like memory palaces, and at learning in general by testing yourself and spacing your practice. Whether that makes your memory better at everything is still debated. Read more in Do brain games actually work?
Which book is best for students?
Make It Stick. It’s built around research on studying and gives specific methods you can use for exams.